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Pitch

The overarching AIM is to develop an economic model that will allow households to have access to insurance coverage and climate information


Description

Summary

Africa’s population is expected to increase by more than 150% between now and 2050 resulting in increased water demand. It is known that the majority of people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are reliant on agriculture which is particularly dependent on an extremely variable rainfall resultant of the actual climate variability and change. This presented situation combined to the others challenges that are facing African communities increase the need of immediate actions. Therefore, situations of poverty, food insecurity, migration, etc. have, increasingly, their explanations in the actual climate instability particularly for the communities in the Sahel zone. This justify the choice of the 4 pilots communities of the present project located in the Burkina Faso. In this context, it become crucial for the researchers and practitioners to build an understanding of the local context challenges in order to sustainable the resilience of communities and their adaptive capacity to climate change.

Although the understanding of local context and the vulnerability is improving through the different intervention of practitioners, NGOs, etc., the implications of Climate Variability and environmental change on spatio-temporal variability of rainfall requires significant research. This is hampered by a lack of accessible data and insufficient historical information to relate Climate Variability to a local incidence. This knowledge gap must be closed for a long-term development planning. By filling knowledge and Research gaps, facilitating co-management strategies and integrating Governance structures, this project, will help vulnerable households and communities anticipate instability and build community resilience capacity to better manage their livelihood activities in a sustainable and equitable manner. Also, limited access to financial instruments and insurance, constraints households to high level of vulnerability and poverty.


What actions do you propose?

To do so, the project will conduct a rigorous data collection in the selected communities to understand the vulnerability, past, present and future, in order to build knowledge and capacities. It must be noted also that lot of research and studies has been conducted on vulnerability and climate change, particularly in Sahel but still the community level remain not clearly defined and integrated to the Regional and national decision making strategy. Considering separately the level and issues can be a limit to the sustainability of actions. The present project will fill this gap by developing a model integrating financial instruments and climate variables for community resilience to climate change in the pilot’s area. This will be through a methodology combining community level vulnerability understanding, cross level (community to National) stakeholders analysis to understand the decision making process and establishment of learning platforms for knowledge sharing. This will then contribute to sustain the resilience capacity of communities in Burkina Faso.


Who will take these actions?

The present project will be conducted mainly at the community level with participation of different institutions, the National Meteorological services of Burkina Faso, international NGOs working at the community level to support the resilience of communities as Christian Aid and his local partner Reseau Marp, University of Ouagadougou Joseph Ki zerbo, the Planet Guarantee Burkina Faso, agriculture research institutions (INERA), extension services, private sector, Government institutions, financial institutions (Microfinance institutions, Bank, local community finance programs, etc.,),  etc.  


Where will these actions be taken?

the project will take place in Burkina Faso, in West Africa. The main group of population this project is targeting is the different households in the 4 pilots communities in Northern Burkina, mostly affected the negative effect of climate variability and change and low access to financial services and insurance mechanisms NGOs, and decider makers will also use the results of the project to improve their work in the communities. The results of the project will also support the decision making process at national level, regional and local level


What are other key benefits?

The project will benefit primarily to the communities of the pilot area, helping understanding the main variables and determinant of vulnerability to climate variability an change; the NGOS working with communities and government to support resilience, the decision makers into the definition of policies; Benefits will come through specific partnership that bring together researcher (social scientist and physical scientist), decision makers, civil society, etc. practical benefits of the project will be the improvement of local communities adaptive capacity to climate change through accessing new tools for adaptation and information accessibility, capacity building through trainings.


What are the proposal’s costs?

30,000 euro is requested for the projects activities, including: the baseline study through data collection in the 4 communities (30 households per community for the survey), 1 index insurance model development, 4 training and workshop at community (1 per community), 1 workshop at national level (with the stakeholders and Government institutions), the Monitoring of insurance implementation in the community for 1 year (beginning, mid and end of the season); 2 articles published in an international journal;


Time line

In partnership with local/ national government institutions, the project will follow a methodology based on concertation and co-production of knowledge. The results of the project will then inform the decision makers at National level so that, all the policies related to agriculture, water management and climate services, take into account the local level and the insurance aspect (this for the mid and Long term). This will support in the mid term the definition of the national policies in disaster risk management and the implementation of the National framework for Climate services in Burkina Faso.


Related proposals

This present research is an original research by proposing a coupled model based on local assessment of vulnerability an, integration of financial instrument for risk management and access to reliable information on a real time basis. But the insurance component was already studied in Western Africa and funded through the Global Index insurance facility of the World Bank group (GIIF). In this initiative, four countries was targeted: Senegal, Mali, Burkina and Benin. There is also the project conducted by IPA Burkina: “Savings Devices and Weather Insurance for Farmers in Senegal and Burkina Faso” in 2013. Some local projects are also being conducted in the area of study, it is the example of the initiatives implemented by PAMEFA into the development of gardening activity to reinforce the resilience of communities in the North Burkina Faso, Helen Keller International, FAPASP (agriculture activities and livestock), World Food Program supporting vulnerable people and refugees from Mali).


References

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  2. Barnett BJ, Mahul O. 2007. Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture and Rural Areas in hal-00656778, version 1 - 5 Jan 2012 18 lower-Income Countries. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 89 (5): 1241–1247.
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  8. FIDA et PAM 2010, L’assurance basée sur un indice climatique : potentiel d’expension et de durabilité, pour l’agriculture et les moyens de subsistance en milieu rural. 156 pages doc pdf.
  9. Halcrow HG. 1948. The Theory of Crop Insurance. Ph.D. diss. thesis, University of Chicago.
  10. Hazell P, Anderson J, Balzer N, Hastrup Clemmensen A, Hess U, Rispoli F. 2010 Potential for scale and sustainability in weather index insurance for agriculture and rural livelihoods, International Fund for Agricultural Development and World Food Programme. Rome.
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