ReliefWeb published a blog report on the progress of the Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) in Zambia. The program, launched by The World Food Program (WFP) and Oxfam, enables vulnerable rural households to increase their food and income security in the face of increasing climate risks. " In Zambia, smallholder farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and constantly face challenges such as erratic rainfall, fragile soil and poor access to markets. Climate change places an additional burden on farmers’ food security by increasing the frequency and intensity of shocks including drought and flooding,"

The Philippines's Former Agriculture Secretary is now pushing for an act mandating the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC) to offer index-based insurance coverage and allowing it to engage in reinsurance, increasing its funding source, and imposing heavier penalties on spurious claims, Manila Bulltin reports. Congressman Arthur Yap, Economic Affairs Committee Chairman, also said that "with stronger and modern insurance system in the agriculture sector, banks would be more confident to lend to farmers." Congressman Yap also specified the need to encourage private insurance companies to offer

According to agriculture and development researchers, Southern African farmers facing hunger as a result of worsening drought know a lot about climate change but lack the resources to put solutions that work into place, Reuters reports. Such shortcomings are one reason an ongoing drought in southern Africa has left 23 million people dependent on food aid, with another 13 million in need of help, according to the Southern African Development Community. In addition, persuading farmers to buy indexed insurance remains a struggle, said Godwin Mashiri, a micro-insurance expert with mobile phone

In a news feature, NDTV reports that weather insurance has become increasingly popular among Indian farmers as droughts and unseasonal rainfalls are destroying their crops.

In a podcast, NPR's Planet Money (The Economy Explained), listeners are taken on a journey in Africa to meet with the continent's farmers and learn about common risks they face in their crop productions - "Farmers don't grow enough of the things they're best at growing." Episode 723 also focuses on index insurance and discusses how access to finance can affect the farmers' investment choice.

The Government of Kenya has launched " Kenya Livestock Insurance Program (KLIP)" that will insure 100,000 household against drought by 2019. The program, which is an initiative of the National Government in partnership with local governments and private sector insurance companies, has an objective of reducing the risks of livestock mortality emanating from drought and of building the resilience of vulnerable pastoralists in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs ) of Kenya through satellite-based index insurance. Under this program, "t he State Department of Livestock purchases premiums on behalf of

In an address to an audience at an Adaptation Futures 2016 plenary session in Rotterdam, UN Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands said financial services that are inclusive would enhance the vulnerable populations’ ability to escape poverty. Financial inclusion is particularly important for smallholder farmers. Without access to credit, they could become caught up in activities with declining productivity and incomes. Along with savings and remittances, insurance is an important financial instrument that helps smallholder farmers

In a blog post published on the World Bank Group's Voices and on Huffington Post, Gloria Grandolini, Senior Director of Finance & Markets Global Practice at the World Bank Group, wrote that market-based instruments – such as insurance ― can act as shock absorbers in case of natural disaster, helping countries around the world avoid the worst of a crisis’ financial impact. Ms. Grandolini also lists five reasons why investing in pre-crisis financial risk management can ease post-disaster recovery needs. As part of the World Bank Group’s Finance & Markets Global Practice, the Global Index

The Government of Zambia has called on insurance firms to develop affordable weather index insurance products in the wake of climate change as they are part of the risk management mechanisms for crop protection among small-scale farmers, Zambia Daily Mail has reported. Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Given Lubinda said the effects of climate change are real, and Zambia is not excluded from the impact, evidenced by the negative impact of the El Niño phenomenon the country experiened during the 2015/16 farming season. “Therefore, farmers’ access to risk mitigation tools such as insurance

Representatives of agricultural financing agencies in Africa are expected in Kigali, Rwanda, next month to come up with solutions to farmers’ financing challenges, KT Press of Rwanda reports. At the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association-AFRACA conference on best practices in rural agriculture finance, experts will discuss “fast-tracking replicability of functional models in rural and agricultural Finance.” The conference will also discuss weather index insurance, which was recently introduced in Rwanda, the report adds. Headquartered in Nairobi, AFRACA is a regional association of