Intro
Voices from New Members 2020
What is Agritask’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“Agritask’s involvement in the crop insurance segment is highly aligned with IGP’s vision to strengthen the resilience of developing countries and to financially protect the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people from disasters. In effect, currently there are hundreds of thousands smallholder farmers globally, especially in developing countries, that benefit from the technological advancements and solutions offered through our platform.”
What significant lessons have you learned from participating in the Working Group?
“Agritask is a member of the InsuResilience Working Group on Integrated Approaches. Agritask has benefited from sharing experiences with respected industry peers and in-depth discussions. This year, we explained how our platform could be used as a tool for Disaster Notification in Mozambique, especially in the context of Cyclones. It also allowed us to learn and contribute to the topics proposed in the different subgroups, e.g., the combination of agricultural DRR with risk financing, and potential solutions to address medium-frequency events such as drought.”
What lessons have you learned from the pandemic crisis in terms of financial preparedness for climate and disaster risks?
“COVID hinders proper field inspections, which disrupts crop production. Field inspection is an important stage for insurance adjustments and claim management. Technology such as remote sensing and satellite imagery proved to be useful in solving these key obstacles, such as the estimation of the planting date and monitoring crop growth cycle remotely, among others.”
Dr Rom Aviv, Managing Director Head of Insurance, Agritask
What is Asia Infinity’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“At Asia Affinity Group, we have a clear focus on building, protecting and empowering the communities with which we work. This covers not just underserved and at-risk communities but also the SME and Gig economy sectors. Our motivation for joining was the strong sense of alignment with the partnership’s core objectives of ensuring community sustainability and resilience.”
What lessons have you learned from the pandemic crisis in terms of financial preparedness for climate and disaster risks?
“There have been two key lessons learned from the Pandemic. The first is the accelerated need for access to all forms of finance across all communities. The second is a new openness to both change and collaboration that did not exist prior to the pandemic. This gives the Partnership a once in a lifetime opportunity to aggressively implement sustainable community transformation and resilience.”
Graham Clark, CEO, Asia Affinity
What is Axco’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“Without adequate risk mitigation measures in place, those struggling to escape poverty are most vulnerable to the impact of climate shocks. Axco shares the vision that insurance provision can make a significant contribution to providing social protections. Now more than ever collaboration and partnership are important, as we strive to build stronger economic resilience and protection.”
Jolle Wever, Managing Director, AXCO
What is CelsiusPro’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“CelsiusPro, together with the InsuResilience Global Partnership, is committed to shaping and contributing to build financial protection for the poor and vulnerable against the impact of natural disasters by leveraging our know how in climate risk to provide risk solution design and risk transfer studies and supporting insurers with technology to efficiently offer climate insurance.”
How is the InsuResilience Working Group you are participating in impacting your activities?
“The Integrated Approaches Working Group is an important platform to build our network and share ideas and visions. Furthermore, we can advise other stakeholders with our vast expertise.”
What lessons have you learned from the pandemic crisis in terms of financial preparedness for climate and disaster risks?
“The pandemic has shown that there is a strong need for immediate and targeted unconditional support to affected people. It has proven the necessity for the strong involvement of the insurance industry, however it’s potential still needs to be further exploited.”
Samuel Brown, Insurance Consultant, CelsiusPro
What is Europa Re’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“We are delighted to cooperate with the members of the IGP community through knowledge and information sharing. This partnership creates synergies that will help develop and deliver climate risk financing and insurance solutions for the poor and vulnerable and we are looking forward to support it.”
Dr. Orsalia Kalantzopoulos,CEO of Europa RE
“Europa Re’s objectives in climate risk insurance solutions fit well with the vision and the objective of the IGP. Over the years, the company has accumulated diverse experience and expertise in innovative product development, modelling, remote sensing assessment and pay-out processes to help meet the growing needs of member countries. We are looking forward to exchanging this knowledge with IPG members, creating better responses to climate risks.”
What lessons have you learned from the pandemic crisis in terms of financial preparedness for climate and disaster risks?
“The pandemics share many parallels with natural disasters. The pandemic affects incomes, economic activity and jobs across sectors, and importantly, as is the case of natural disasters, affects greatly the poor and vulnerable. We, as one community, need to share the lessons learned and knowledge from the various responses to natural disasters, and cooperate closely on strengthening relevant institutions, preparedness and financial resilience.”
Dr Nadica Jovanovska Boshkovska, Head of Representative Office N. Macedonia, Europa RE
What is IFAD’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“In the spirit of SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) IFAD has searched to forge and nurture meaningful partnerships that can allow IFAD to gather the necessary technical expertise and knowhow to create greater and deeper impact, ultimately to better help IFAD’s beneficiaries.”
What lessons have you learned from the pandemic crisis in terms of financial preparedness for climate and disaster risks?
“The pandemic is testing the resilience of IFAD beneficiaries. The unique ways in which it has affected trade and economies has highlighted the fragility of current global food systems. Now is the opportunity to rethink, adapt, reinvest and rebuild for a more sustainable future, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable.”
Meike van Ginneken, Associate Vice-President, Strategy and Knowledge Department, IFAD
What is MicroInsurance Centre at Milliman’s motivation for joining the InsuResilience Global Partnership?
“We believe in the power of partnerships to make SUAVE (simple, understood, accessible, valuable, efficient) risk management solutions a reality for low-income people globally. The Partnership provides an unparalleled platform to share knowledge, lessons, resources, and expertise among members so that collectively we can increase resiliency on a large-scale.”
“The MIC@M believes low-income customers need holistic solutions that include risk reduction, retention, and transfer, to deal with the financial impacts of disasters and climate-related events. The Partnership’s platform cultivates the knowledge generation and sharing that drive the development of such solutions.”
Michael J. McCord, Managing Director, MicroInsurance Centre at Milliman