The Promise and Pitfalls of Index Insurance: Building Resilience Through Responsible Implementation
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Agriculture is an inherently risky activity. This risk exposure can make and keep farmers poor. Agricultural index insurance can help farmers avoid costly coping mechanisms and unlock opportunities for increased investment and greater resilience, but such positive development impacts largely depend on the quality of the index insurance product and its appropriateness in a particular context.
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access has tested dozens of agricultural index insurance interventions around the world. Based on the results of this research, the lab is developing resources to enable stakeholders to assess the potential and quality of index insurance in a given context.
In this Agrilinks webinar, participants will gain an overview of agricultural and livestock-based index insurance as a development tool and the emerging evidence base around its efficacy. Participants will also be introduced to a new hands-on tool that will help them understand and incorporate minimum quality standards (MQS) for successful index insurance interventions.
Speakers
Jennifer Cisse
Senior Risk Advisor
Bureau for Food Security/ USAID
Jennifer Cisse is a Senior Risk Advisor in USAID's Bureau for Food Security (BFS) in the Office of Market and Partnership Innovation. Jennifer manages BFS's insurance-related activities and provide technical assistance on resilience, risk management, and index insurance. She enjoys research on resilience building and measurement, and has a PhD in applied economics from Cornell University.
Tara Chiu
Assistant Director
Assets & Market Access Innovation Lab
Tara Chiu is the Assistant Director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access, based at the University of California, Davis. In this role, she provides both administrative and strategic support for a wide portfolio of research focused around the topics risk management and resilience, including the I4 Index Insurance Innovation Initiative. She also supports the AMA Innovation Lab’s efforts to achieve impact through policy-oriented outreach activities that integrate research findings into policy and programming. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from American University and a Master of Public Policy from Duke University.
Michael Carter
Director
Assets & Market Access Innovation Lab
Michael R. Carter is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis and directs the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access and the I4 Index Insurance Innovation Initiative. His research examines poverty dynamics and productive social safety nets, the impact of violence on aspirations and hope, small farm uptake of improved technologies, and features a suite of projects that design, pilot and evaluate index insurance contracts as mechanisms to alleviate chronic poverty.
Related Resources
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Presentation Audio Transcript
Question and Answer Audio Transcript
Chat Transcripts
Presentation Audio
Question and Answer Audio
A MINIMUM QUALITY STANDARD TO ENSURE INDEX INSURANCE CONTRACTS DO NO HARM
BEFORE & AFTER THE DROUGHT Evidence on the Impact of Index Insurance on Small Farm Investment and Social Protection
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