MITIGATING CLIMATE RISKS AROUND THE WORLD: WORKING WITH COMPANIES
Droughts, floods, landslides – the impacts of climate change are already causing damage on a huge scale. As a result, governments are facing enormous bills to help supply affected individuals with basic essentials and to restore damaged infrastructure.
DEVELOPING NEW WAYS OF TRANSFERRING RISK
Few governments in developing countries have adequate insurance cover for the financial risks of climate-related disasters. That is why GIZ is cooperating with the Swiss reinsurance company Swiss Re through a development partnership. Together, GIZ and Swiss Re are working with governments in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia in order to identify new ways of transferring risks.
COOPERATION WITH SWISS RE
This cooperation arrangement is part of BMZ’s develoPPP.de programme, which supports private companies interested in implementing projects in developing countries that offer long-term benefits for the local population. GIZ and Swiss Re are combining their expertise and their networks in order to promote better ways of providing insurance cover for climate-related risks.
More than 90 representatives from 11 Asian states met in 2016 at a dedicated International Workshop on Sovereign Risk Transfer held in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. They discussed the consequences of major floods and ways of covering the financial risks involved. Elsewhere, in Africa, drought is making life difficult for farmers. Appropriate agricultural insurance schemes will help rice farmers in Nigeria and herders in East Africa protect themselves against harvest losses or the loss of their livestock.
INSURING 400 MILLION PEOPLE AGAINST CLIMATE RISKS
The activities of GIZ and Swiss Re are contributing to the global InsuResilience initiative, which was founded in 2015 at the G7 Summit in Elmau. It aims to offer up to 400 million poor and vulnerable people in developing countries insurance cover against climate-related risks by 2020.