UNDP will start insurance and risk-financing work in eight new countries in the first quarter of this year.

This work is backed by funding from the German government. The countries where work will commence are - Algeria, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Tanzania. Although diverse in their current utilization of insurance and risk-financing, each is facing significantly increasing crises, shocks, uncertainties, and disasters.

Take for instance – India – Asia’s largest economies and world’s second most populous country. India has faced massive destruction of lives and livelihoods due to repetitive disasters such as the Kerala flood in 2017 and 2018. This alarming trend triggered the state government of Kerala to invite state owned GIC Re and the second largest global reinsurer Swiss Re to propose insurance solutions as part of disaster management.

In Ghana, most people when it comes to coping with fire, flood, drought, accidents, pest infestation, diseases have no access to insurance protection solutions even though there exists a favourable business environment to develop such solutions. 70% of Ghanaians have no access to insurance or risk financing solutions.

The writing is on the wall. It is time for the development system and industry to galvanize all efforts and work with countries to develop accessible, needs-based, flexible insurance solutions, and build country systems to make insurance and risk-financing central to sustaining development. Insurance and risk-financing helps protect assets, improves lives and livelihoods, and in fact drives economic growth – stripping the financial burden of disaster response from families and countries alike, and incentivizing investment and development.

In Algeria, Colombia, Ghana, and Uzbekistan, UNDP will work with some of the largest insurance companies in the world: Allianz, Swiss Re, Munich Re, Guy Carpenter, AXA, Axis Capital, Hannover Re. This is part of a close cooperation with the Insurance Development Forum.

All UNDP’s work will focus on balancing the development of solutions, both in large scale risk-financing and family-by-family insurance, along with governance of insurance and risk-financing mechanisms. The aim is to facilitate the adoption of such financing solutions as part of the country's long-term toolkit for delivering development.

The country work spans for the next two to three years and is the first major roll-out of activities of the Insurance and Risk-Finance Facility, which was formally launched in September last year.