Promoting Access to Agricultural Insurance in Developing Countries: Agriculture Insurance Development Program (AIDP) Strategy Paper 2013-2015

Many pilot agricultural insurance schemes have not scaled up, and hence have had little impact on the resilience of rural livelihoods. Agricultural insurance that does not scale up cannot have a substantial impact on agricultural productivity or rural livelihoods. In recent years numerous private sector agricultural insurance pilots have been implemented in developing countries, usually with support from donor partners and mainly for index-based crop insurance. However, only a few, notably the crop insurance programs in India and the index-based livestock insurance program Mongolia, have scaled up to sustainable programs. AIDP focuses on public aspects of public private partnerships, and leverages existing programs both within and outside the World Bank Group. AIDP builds on the complementary expertise of the DRFI Program and the ARMT, in partnership with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). By providing the risk market infrastructure necessary for constructive, sustainable private sector engagement in agricultural insurance, AIDP complements the work of the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF). AIDP will also work closely with research partners, such as the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice-Presidency (DEC) and research networks and organizations such as I4 and IFPRI, to develop and implement AIDP’s monitoring and evaluation framework. This will enable lessons learned through AIDP to be disseminated to a wide audience, and to ensure that lessons learned by others are incorporated into AIDP policy and practice going forward.