Full Publication In various forms microinsurance has been available to some low-income people in Africa for a number of years. Cooperative Insurers have serviced a market that spans the income ranges since the 1970s. In the 1980s, community-based health insurance schemes, especially in West Africa, followed the Bamako Initiative. In the mid-1990s, commercial insurers began to enter the market offering specialized microinsurance products. Informal microinsurance has been available for decades in a range of forms, from “tontines” in West Africa or “friend in need” groups in East Africa to burial

Having enough food in East Africa depends largely on the productivity of smallholder farms, which in turn depends on farmers’ ability to invest in their farms. Weather insurance can encourage farmers to make these critical investments by improving their access to credit. The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF)—an IFC/IBRD collaboration housed under IFC’s Access to Finance’s Global Retail/Microfinance Cluster—is an innovative program that is expanding access to insurance against weather risks and natural disasters to farmers, livestock herders, and others, particularly in Africa and the

Food security is a critical phenomenon amongst developing countries. Most nations are now placing greater emphasis on crop insurance as a means of managing farming risk and enhancing food security. With Southern Africa having been hit by weather hazards such as floods and drought over the past few decades and its agricultural output continuing its downward plunge, the paper explores the relevancy of crop insurance in enhancing food security and facilitating agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe.

Under Mexico’s G20 Presidency, Vice Ministers/Deputies of Agriculture from the countries of the G20, and invited countries1 (the “G20 Agriculture Group”) met in Mexico City with the aim of articulating goals, focusing efforts and establishing sound commitments to address food security challenges under a global perspective.

Fifty-five year old Niyitegeka Veneranda lives in rural Rwanda. She and her husband are parents to seven children and grandparents to five. They farm less than a hectare of their own land, yet she has been able to build a small house, feed her family, and send her last three children to school. She expanded her rice production recently with a loan from a local bank made possible through agricultural insurance, and plans to expand her acreage with another loan next year.

Unlike conventional insurance, which indemnifies policyholders for verifiable production losses arising from multiple perils, index insurance indemnifies policyholders based on the observed value of a specified “index” or some other closely related variable that is highly correlated with losses. Index insurance exhibits lower transaction costs than conventional insurance, potentially making it more affordable to the poor in the developing world. However, it also offers less effective individual risk protection. This article provides a review of recent theoretical and empirical research on index insurance for developing countries and summarizes lessons learned from index insurance projects implemented in the developing world since 2000

Thousands of farmers in Moiben, Eldoret have always known that drought comes after every 10 years. But every once in a while the pattern is broken and they are caught off-guard as was the case in 1984 and in 2009. However, in the midst of the dark clouds of hunger, there was a silver lining that got them smiling last year— a crop insurance product that promised to change their fortunes. This is a first for small-scale farmers in Kenya who produce more than 70 per cent of the country’s food output.

Risk characterizes life for many of the world’s poorest households. They are more likely to be located in environments where livelihoods are highly susceptible to weather and price variability and where health risks are pervasive. When these risks are uninsured, they not only reduce the current welfare of poor rural households, but also threaten future income growth and thus perpetuate poverty. Reducing the risks faced by poor households, and enabling poor households to better deal with bad events when they do occur, is essential to improving their welfare in the short run and their opportunities for income growth in the long run. This note draws on the briefs published in the IFPRI’s 2020 Focus “Innovations in Insuring the Poor” and other work, to examine the potential for agricultural insurance, and in particular index insurance, as a risk management tool for rural households in sub-Saharan Africa.