On May 18, colleagues from the Gender Innovation Lab at the World Bank hosted a webinar titled "Let her Grow: Addressing the productivity gap in agriculture—Barriers and promising interventions." The webinar presented the findings from three studies on productivity gaps between women and men farmers in Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Côte d’Ivoire. These studies presented new evidence on the most binding constraints faced by women farmers, and effective interventions to address these constraints. Each of the studies examined different aspects of this issue and presented

Against the backdrop of a green and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s attention is centered on closing the protection gap. Closing the protection gap will enable a swifter post-disaster recovery and ensure business continuity for the most vulnerable. The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) team caught up with Pedro Pinheiro and Nick Moody of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) for their reflections on closing the protection gap by insuring the missing middle. Pedro Pinheiro is the coordinator of the Inclusive Insurance Working Group, while Nick Moody coordinates

Nairobi, Kenya, March 8, 2022 – The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), launched a competition for technology-led enterprises in Africa to offer innovative solutions for agriculture and inclusive insurance and announced 3 top winners: Omishtu-Joy (Ethiopia), Rural Farmers Hub (Nigeria), and AgroTech+ (Kenya). Powered by Sankalp Forum, the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge aimed to celebrate and support young entrepreneurs who are working at the intersection of agriculture, insurance, climate, and gender to build resilience for rural populations. The Challenge offered an

Under a scenario with 1.5°C of warming above preindustrial levels by 2030, almost half of the world’s population—approximately 5.0 billion people—could be exposed to a climate hazard related to heat stress, drought, flood, or water stress in the next decade. Today, this figure is 3.3 billion people. There is thus an urgent need to focus on boosting resilience in both cities and rural areas. During the just-ended COP26, the World bank Group turned the spotlight on its Climate Change Action Plan 2021-25 which prioritizes a green, resilient and inclusive development (GRID) approach for maximizing

Background: During the just-concluded COP26, Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) Group showcased its lessons learnt in implementing continent-wide climate risk resilience initiatives for millions of Africans through dynamic partnerships. ARC Group also received new funding for scaling its reach and impact to safeguard livelihoods for the most vulnerable at the frontlines of climate change-mediated hazards. The Global Index Insurance (GIIF) team caught up with the ARC Limited CEO, Mr. Lesley Ndlovu to reflect on key milestones in 2021 and the main takeaways from COP26. GIIF: ARC Group focusses on

Despite the importance of the agricultural activities to the Indonesian economy ([13%] of GDP), livelihoods ([34%] of labor force), food security, and poverty reduction, the multiple risks associated with agricultural production – coupled with the general lack of knowledge and outreach to farmers/agriculture sector by financial institutions – have limited the needed levels of investment flows into the sector. Agri-lending in Indonesia accounts for a small portion of total lending, at [5.8%]. The risks aversion towards lending to farmers are well documented, including price fluctuations and

Martin Kipping, Head of the Climate Policy Division at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) shares his views with GIIF on COP26 and Germany’s commitment to strengthening the resilience of poor and vulnerable people through climate and disaster risk finance and insurance solutions. The BMZ has committed some 800 million euros for the InsuResilience Global Partnership and its precursor, the G7 InsuResilience Initiative, since 2015. This year, GIIF received an additional 10 million euros from Germany for the Africa Inclusive Insurance Program. What are your

On September 21 st and 22 nd, the online conference ‘Opportunities of Digital Innovation in Insurance in Africa’ was held in French and English. The event was organized by West Africa Business School, the African Bancassurance Academy, led by Obasi Ngwuta (Managing Director), and Mobile Convergence Ecosystems Ltd., led by Jean-Stéphane Gourévitch, its CEO and Founder. With +500 attendees registered for this virtual conference, and over 40 senior executives from major insurers, reinsurers, regulatory authorities, insurtech start-up’s, global management consulting and law firms, the conference

According to the research from ISF Advisor (2018), only 20% of smallholder farmers in the developing countries have access to agricultural insurance coverage, and in sub-Saharan Africa this falls further to just 3%. Blockchain is a transformative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that have the potential to revolutionize how data is used for agriculture insurance and enable smallholder-inclusive value chain development. Blockchains are essentially immutable digital ledgers that can be used to securely record all transactions taking place on a given network. Such technological

The livestock sector supports livelihoods of some 60% of rural households made up of 1.7 billion people worldwide. Currently, the World Bank has US$1.9 billion in active investments in improving livestock sector and enhancing pastoral livelihoods mostly in Africa, South Asia and Central Asia. The Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly, has a strong tradition of animal rearing. Livestock sector contributes to one-third to half of agriculture GDP in many Sahelian countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger as well as Mauritania and Chad. Despite pastoralism being a major economic