WASHINGTON, February 14, 2017 - The World Bank Group’s Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) and African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) have entered into an agreement to carry out a risk-sharing facility, in form of an experience account, to decrease premium levels for insured farmers and encourage local companies to create affordable insurance products. “Agriculture provides up to 60 percent of all jobs on the continent, but African farmers need greater access to insurance mechanisms to develop resilience to external shocks and protect their livelihoods,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank

Australian farmers who took up multi-peril crop insurance claim it helped them sleep at night, not worrying about a third failed harvest, ABC News reports. The Australian Government is working to support the development of a more diverse and mature agricultural insurance market, including multi-peril crop insurance, the report also adds.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek wrote an article that discusses crop insurance in Africa, whose potential to benefit the region's farmers remains relatively unlocked. "Africa has struggled to marshal the necessary resources to unlock their agricultural potential. Gains in one area, such as better seed, are often stymied by deficits in others—not enough grain silos. Getting smaller farmers plugged into credit networks would help spur investment and bring new producers to markets," says Ulrich Hess, a senior adviser to Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit. In Africa, index insurance

The World Bank has welcomed the government's partnership with local insurance companies in crop and livestock cover policies, saying they will benefit smallholder farmers.Country director for Kenya, Ms Diarietou Gaye, said the programme has the potential to positively impact the country's economic development since it will help increase production as well as producer incomes."The large majority of the poor in Kenya are farmers and it will enable them to adopt improved production processes to help break the poverty cycle of low investment and low returns," she said.The bank's Disaster Risk

Poor farmers all over the world are increasingly falling prey to natural disasters, droughts and torrential rain largely due to climate change. But there is some good news as well. Thanks to new technologies, the widespread use of satellites, and more powerful computers, such events can largely be predicted in advance, thus making possible novel and more efficient insurance schemes for those at risk. In an interview with AFP, Gilles Galludec, Program Manager of the World Bank-run Global Index Insurance Facility discusses how index insurance schemes differ from traditional indemnity coverage in

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