Livestock insurance helps herders to protect livestock

In Kenya, the value of the pastoral livestock sector is estimated to be worth 800 million U.S. dollars

Livestock insurance scheme developed by pastoralists in partnership with the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is helping Kenyan herders to protect their marketable assets.

The new book on markets development for African small holder farmers published in Nairobi on Wednesday has highlighted a pioneering livestock insurance project as a key innovation that could enable African farmers reduce their losses in crop and livestock production.

“It will not be enough to simply produce more food from the fields and grazing lands of Africa,” warns the new book, which is published by ILRI and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

A statement from ILRI said more effort is needed to create better markets and improve access to these markets’ especially in remote regions.

Read more ….. Africa news: Kenya Focus.  Special report by XINHUA correspondent: Christine Lagat – May 4 -10, 2012

 

Pioneering insurance for remote livestock herders taking hold in drought-prone areas of Kenya and Ethiopia

Sake Dabasso Halake with her recent livestock insurance payout, which was made in northern Kenya’s Marsabit District following the great drought that afflicted the Horn of Africa in the latter half of 2011 (photo credit: Jeff Haskins/Burness Communications).

Laurie Goering, a reporter for AlertNet writing from the United Nations climate change meetings in Durban this week, says that pioneering insurance projects are giving remote pastoral livestock herders a way to reduce the risks they face from a changing climate that presents recurring, dramatically severe, droughts.

‘Equipping illiterate migratory herders with drought insurance in one of the driest regions of drought-prone East Africa might seem a big task, particularly in a region where claims adjustors, cell phone coverage and cash to pay for policies are nearly as rare as rain itself.

‘But a range of such pioneering insurance efforts – considered one of the few ways to help East Africa’s herders weather worsening droughts – are taking hold in Kenya and Ethiopia, and are now being replicated as far away as Peru and Guatemala.

Read more …. ILRI clippings by Susan Macmillan, Dec 2011

 

Insurance aims to help herders avoid ‘downward spiral’ from drought

A Kenyan nomadic herder walks near camels drinking water at a point in the northeastern town of El Wak, close to the Somalia and Kenya border, February 6, 2009. REUTERS/Antony Njuguna

DURBAN, South Africa (AlertNet) – Equipping illiterate migratory herders with drought insurance in one of the driest regions of drought-prone East Africa might seem a big task, particularly in a region where claims adjustors, cell phone coverage and cash to pay for policies are nearly as rare as rain itself.

But a range of such pioneering insurance efforts – considered one of the few ways to help East Africa’s herders weather worsening droughts – are taking hold in Kenya and Ethiopia, and are now being replicated as far away as Peru and Guatemala.

“(Herders) are fantastic risk managers. All they lack is the tools to do it even better,” said Richard Choularton, a senior policy officer focusing on climate change and disaster risk reduction for the World Food Programme (WFP).

Equipping them with insurance “keeps households above the poverty line so they don’t enter this downward spiral” when bad times hit – a key way of helping them adapt to climate change, he said during an explanation of insurance programmes at the United Nations’ climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

In Kenya’s northern Marsabit district, near the border with Somalia and Ethiopia, the landscape is so dry that herding animals – camels and goats in the parched north, cattle in the slightly lusher south – is the only option for most people to make a living.

Long accustomed to dealing with drought, herders have traditional ways of coping, including moving animals to distant pastures, selling some for cash to reduce herds and build reserves when drought strikes, loaning animals to those who have lost their herds and, in some cases, raiding neighbours’ herds to restock.

But worsening droughts – believed to be linked to climate change – mean many of those traditional mechanisms are no longer effective, and growing numbers of families are slipping into hunger and worsening poverty.

MICRO-INSURANCE

Insurance – or more specifically index-based micro-insurance – offers a way to help prevent that, its backers say.

Under most programmes, pastoralists are offered a chance to insure a portion or all of their animals against losses to drought. The average annual cost of a policy in Marsabit district is about $5 to $8, according to Brenda Wandera, who works on livestock-based index insurance programmes there for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Read More …. Alertnet // Laurie Goering , 30 Nov 2011

 

Exploring weather index insurance in Ethiopia

Researchers, insurance brokers, insurance companies, banks, donors, ministry of agriculture and non-governmental organizations participated in a workshop this week to discuss index insurance for agriculture in Ethiopia.

Three projects of the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative (I4) hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the international Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) shared their research practices, experiences and challenges. Participants explored opportunities for improved weather index insurance in Ethiopia and the way to move forward.

The presenters  highlighted that weather remains a major source of risk to rural livelihoods in Ethiopia. Uninsured risk can drive people into poverty and destitution, especially those in low-wealth agricultural and pastoralist households. Speakers also indicated that weather index insurance holds much potential as one means by which the link between risk and poverty can be broken.

Following the presentations, participants formed groups to discuss four topics: Finance, insurance, government, and non-governmental organizations. Key issues emerging were the lack of coordination and partnerships, a lack of data, awareness and understanding,  the lack of good policy, the need for capacity building, and potential for improved linkages among the government and private sectors.

View the presentations online