East Asia and Pacific

Vulnerable Households Need Resilient Institutions in Disasters
In a CGAP blog, Thea Anderson and Muhammad Syahrin write that building disaster resilience in Indonesia is critical, as the country is battered by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, and droughts on a regular basis. To this effect, MFIs serve as a critical and immediate vehicle to financing after disasters. Recognizing this ongoing cycle, Mercy Corps pioneered the Indonesia Liquidity Facility After Disaster (ILFAD), which has partnered with global reinsurer Swiss Re and the World Bank’s Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) to design portfolio-level insurance products in partnership
03
Feb
Key findings from the Global expert workshop co-hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands and the Rabobank Group and organized by the World Bank’s FISF initiative. Workshop report including links to presentations made at the workshop is available here: Report on Financial Inclusion of Agriculture-Dependent Households Need to focus on broader array of financial services rather than just credit or insurance for agricultural production. Agricultural households have a broad range of financial service needs, several of them for lifecycle and business needs not related to agriculture
19
Jan
This post was originally produced during the GIIF Conference held in Paris at the OECD Headquarters. The 6 key lessons learnt that emerge from the panel are as follows: Insurance needs to be part of a value add package that generates higher income for the farmers Governments play a key role in creating markets for agricultural insurance. Experiences in Peru, India and Senegal point to government interventions such as premium support, risk financing, and linkage to credit. There is a need to design and offer the right insurance product. Area Yield Index Insurance may offer an adequate
24
Nov
Interview with Xavier Gine, Lead Economist within the World Bank Research Department (DEC). 1/ What do we know about index insurance after about 10 years of experience? There has been a lot of research around the question of take-up and impact of index insurance. Despite the potentially large welfare benefits, voluntary take-up of index insurance products has been rather limited so far. Explanations for this low demand could include: The first reason is that the product may be expensive, relative to the existing risk coping strategies. After all, when it is not subsidized as is the case for
Interview with Gloria Grandolini, F&M GP Senior Director, World Bank Group Over the last 10 years , our work at the World Bank Group (WBG) has led to over 35 million farmers benefiting from new or improved insurance products. The WBG recognizes the importance of making available financial solutions, particularly insurance instruments to compensate for losses following adverse natural events.
20
Jul
What happens when a major national development organization – GIZ and a leading private insurer – Allianz SE get together to build innovation in micro-insurance? Watch full video of the event here Experts presented key insights on micro-insurance with a larger view on how these lessons learnt can be applied to other inclusive insurance projects and to various other sectors. The 60 minute session showcased case-studies ranging from how GIZ has assisted Allianz in turning a corporate responsibility charitable micro-insurance story into a fully-fledged and profitable micro-insurance business
THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN DEVELOPING AGRICULTURAL FINANCE: A look at the history of Germany, the US, and South Korea
Full Publication here The four stages of agricultural development are: The case studies of Germany, the US, and South Korea reveal four largely linear stages of agricultural finance development within each country. These stages are differentiated by sources of farm debt, government roles, and the nature of farm structure and productivity. This briefing classifies these stages of agricultural finance development as:1. The informally-served stage2. The government-entry stage3. The bank-based stage4. The market-based stage
Supported by the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been working with PT Reasuransi MAIPARK (national reinsurer of all special risks) to design and retail an index insurance product that protects the lending portfolios of banks from liquidity crises in the aftermath of an earthquake. This is relevant particularly for microfinance institutions (MFIs) and rural banks to be able to continue lending to communities when funds are most needed. Product brochures in English and in Bahasa Indonesia are available.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), supported by the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) and the Canadian government, has been working with CPMI (CARD Pioneer Microinsurance Inc.) and CARD MRI (the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mutually Reinforcing Institutions) to create an index-based portfolio insurance product to insure the loan portfolios of lending institutions such as microfinance institutions (MFIs). They have also been working to provide advisory services for an indemnity-based crop insurance product to insure crop losses suffered by CARD agri-borrowers
Feasibility study for crop and livestock index-insurance - Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a lower middle income country located in the Asian-Pacific region. Agriculture is the predominant source of livelihood in the country, with the agricultural sector accounting for 67% of the total labor force and 35% of the GDP in 2010. PNG has a very high exposure to earthquake, tsunami and volcanoes as well as being affected by climatic perils including tropical cyclones and the influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle which brings with it extremes of drought and excess rain and flooding. The Government of PNG identifies that agriculture has and