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 June 2016, over 60 participants gathered at the College of insurance in Nairobi to discuss best practices and share their knowledge and expertise on index insurance, particularly livestock insurance and agriculture insurance. The discussions were quite timely, as the Government of Kenya recently allocated US$6 million for crop and livestock insurance for smallholder producers for next year, as one of the ‘key government flagship projects to drive the transformative agenda’. This is a five-fold increase in budget from the previous years with strong allocations toward data systems and premium

Subsistence farmers are often among the world’s most poor and they will need access to financial products if they are to adapt to climate change and the extreme drought, floods and storms it brings, said Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands during the 4th International Climate Change Adaptation Conference in Rotterdam on May 11, 2016. Her Majesty believes that financial services that are more inclusive and insurance innovations, such as index insurance, help reduce many smallholder farmers' vulnerability and increase their ability to escape poverty, and also cites the the Kilimo Salama

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

NAIROBI, March 12, 2016- The Government of Kenya today launched the Kenya National Agricultural Insurance Program, which is designed to address the challenges that agricultural producers face when there are large production shocks, such as droughts and floods. The program, which is designed as a partnership between the government and the private sector, was developed with assistance from the World Bank Group and builds on the experience of similar programs in Mexico, India, and China. One program line will focus on livestock insurance, while another will focus on maize and wheat insurance.

In a VOA article, the Kilimo Salama projected, funded by the Global Index Insurance Facility and the Syngenta Foundation, is cited for having provided insurance to about 200,000 farmers in east Africa, mainly in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. Because it is so expensive to verify losses on large numbers of small landholdings, the traditional type of individual loss-based insurance is not always viable. That has led to index-based insurance for smallholder farmers for weather-related risks. In the long run in the developing world, specialists say, what is needed most is investment in science and

For several years, insuring harvests against the climate hazards that regularly destroy farmers’ crops in developing countries has for several years been a major tool in the fight against poverty, mainly in Africa and Asia, where between 400 and 500 million farmers survive on very low incomes. At the Convergences World Forum in Paris on 9 September 2015, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and GIIF speak about the innovations in index insurance and the success of the Kilimo Salama project in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania. Expanded in 2014, the program develops and offers insurance for