InsuResilience Global Partnership: insuring against the impact of climate change

Context

Extreme weather events and other climate risks are threatening many people’s livelihoods. In 2017 alone, natural disasters caused damage worth USD 350 billion worldwide; for 2018, the figure is estimated at USD 155 billion.

Poor countries are especially hard-hit: they have small national budgets and are highly dependent on economic sectors that are at especially high risk from extreme weather events and natural disasters, such as agriculture. These countries also have limited capacity to prepare for disasters, so the scale of humanitarian crises is greater there than in industrialised countries. Low-income households are especially vulnerable, as they have little or no means of mitigating the impact of such crises.

Climate risk insurance offers financial protection against the negative consequences of extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of climate change. This is why the InsuResilience initiative was launched in 2015 during the German Presidency of the G7. The global Climate Change Conference in Bonn in November 2017 took this G7 initiative further and launched the InsuResilience Global Partnership. This brings together representatives of the G20 and the V20 (the Vulnerable Twenty Group: the 20 countries most severely affected by global warming) and representatives of international organisations, the private sector, civil society and academia. At the UN Climate Change Summit in 2019, the participants adopted Vision 2025, a six-year work plan with ambitious goals aimed at the further national and international development by this global Partnership of climate risk finance and insurance instruments. The Partnership is supported by a Secretariat, whose role is to enhance the visibility of the InsuResilience Global Partnership, to foster communication and cooperation among all relevant actors of the Partnership and to facilitate knowledge management.

Objective

The resilience of developing countries to climate-related events has been improved. There is greater protection for the lives and livelihoods of people particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change and natural disasters.

The Secretariat has advanced the strategic development of the InsuResilience Global Partnership and supported efforts to implement needs-based and poverty- and gender-sensitive climate and disaster risk finance and insurance by the partners as part of a comprehensive climate risk management plan that ensures international visibility.

Approach

The project promotes the international dissemination of market-oriented and poverty- and gender-sensitive solutions for climate risk insurance in developing countries by stakeholders within the InsuResilience Global Partnership. It works at national and international levels with public, private and civil society stakeholders to build the requisite capacity. In previous phases, the project worked on developing and coordinating a Secretariat. The Secretariat has managed the project since 2016. It was set up primarily to provide strategic and organisational support for the Partnership and its members and facilitate networking between the stakeholders. The project also supports decision-makers in developing countries by providing advice on suitable financing solutions.

In its role as Secretariat, the project assists the Partnership’s highest steering body, the High-Level Consultative Group (HLCG), providing guidance, helping draw up the annual review and assessing the impact of activities. It also organises, attends and, particularly, documents the HLCG’s regular meetings. 

Its networking means that the Secretariat is able to promote close collaboration between Global Partnership members. It supports a number of working groups to share knowledge about instruments offering financial cover for natural disasters, provides reliable data enabling the impact of the Partnership’s activities to be assessed, and tracks promising trends and innovations that could help advance the issue of climate risk finance and insurance.

To measure the impact of the Partnership, the Secretariat is developing a monitoring and evaluation system in collaboration with academic partners and Partnership members for documenting and reporting on the progress and results of the Partnership in relation to its objectives.

Results

The results of previous project phases are being consolidated and developed. Since 2016, the initiative has developed into a broader partnership. It has grown rapidly and now has more than 70 members.

• In the InsuResilience Global Partnership, representatives of the G20 – the 20 most influential industrial countries and emerging economies – and representatives of the V20 and of international organisations, the private sector, civil society and academia come together around the same table.
• The Global Partnership is now perceived as a forum for exchange and networking as well as for developing solutions. Its High-Level Consultative Group is made up of high-ranking individuals who, in their role as political ambassadors, act as multipliers for the Partnership’s mission and embed it in the global strategy for adapting to climate change.
• The project takes particular account of women’s needs, reflecting gender-specific differences in susceptibility to climate risk. On the basis of two studies and one working group (the Gender Working Group), the Partnership is now in a position to develop gender-specific strategies, which is helping to dismantle the obstacles that prevent women from obtaining insurance cover.
• The InsuResilience Global Partnership Forum conference now comprises an active community who share experiences and present examples of good practice. The conference provides new opportunities for working together and building new alliances. It has taken place every year since 2017.
• The Program Alliance has been set up. It brings together the activities of the Centre for Disaster Protection, the Global Risk Financing Facility and the InsuResilience Solutions Fund. The programme is funded by the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the World Bank and KfW Development Bank. The Program Alliance also has a Secretariat. The partners have a broad range of specific solutions at their disposal or are in the process of developing them.