Bundling Weather Index Insurance with Microfinance: Trekking the Long Road between Expectations and Reality – A Study on Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Food production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is exposed to climatic variations and weather-related shocks which affect agricultural output beyond the manageable limits of smallholder farmers. To manage food production uncertainties, weather index insurance (WII) pilot projects have been launched across SSA since the early 2000s. Due to low adoption rates among smallholder farmers, insurance providers have partnered with risk aggregators such as microfinance institutions to foster the demand for and uptake of WII. Despite this, demand for WWI remains low. This chapter seeks to explore the gap between the assertion, that WII is a promising risk transfer mechanism for smallholder farmers in SSA and the realisation that, even where microfinance is made available, subscription rates among smallholder farmers rarely rise. The practice of linking insurance with credit is considered to be important because, in principle, when smallholder farmers have access to insurance, they pose less risk to creditors. In this sense, insurance can crowd-in credit, the lack of which has long been identified as a major, if not the main, constraint for smallholders in developing countries.