The Potential for Scale and Sustainability in Weather Index Insurance

Acknowledgements
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food
Programme (WFP) are working together to increase the access of low-income farmers
to weather index-based insurance and other risk-management tools through the
IFAD-WFP Weather Risk Management Facility (WRMF).
This research paper is the product of a great deal of learning and collaboration. Its
authors are Peter Hazell, who made significant contributions, and WRMF team
members Jamie Anderson, Niels Balzer, Andreas Hastrup Clemmensen, Ulrich Hess
(working as team leader of the WRMF until 2009) and Francesco Rispoli.
The paper would not have been possible without the insights and efforts of the
entire WRMF team, which further included Monica Anselmi, Federica Argento,
Sandro Calmanti, Sew Pook Chin, Emily Coleman, Bronwyn Cousins, Giuditta De
Simone, William Dick, Michael Hamp, Daniel Kull, Francesco Massimeo, Andrea
Stoppa, Laura Verlangieri and Weijing Wang.
Research for the individual case studies was led by Sonu Agrawal (India), Bruce
Babcock (Canada and the United States), Terefe Boshera (Ethiopia), Jesús Escamilla
Juárez (Mexico), Eyob Meherete (Ethiopia), Ronaldo Neves (Brazil), Anthony Patt (farmer
games), Kolli Rao (India), Marcela Denisse Cruz Rubí (Mexico), Roman Shynkarenko
(Ukraine), Pablo Suarez (farmer games) and Junsheng Zhu (China). In addition, the
paper benefited from a great deal of complementary research on the case studies by the
WRMF team, with particular thanks due to Emily Coleman and Laura Verlangieri.
We are deeply grateful to the colleagues and experts in index insurance who
reviewed a draft of the paper and suggested many useful improvements: Weather Risk
Management Services, Ltd., India; William Dick, agricultural risk-management
consultant; Rose Goslinga, Syngenta Foundation; Molly Hellmuth, International
Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI); Daniel Osgood (IRI); Andrea Stoppa,
agricultural risk-management consultant; and Joanna Syroka, WFP.
We would also like to thank the many colleagues and experts in index insurance who
have supported the work of the IFAD-WFP WRMF and given us valuable feedback in
small technical workshops held in Hyderabad in 2008 and in Rome in 2009. Participants
included Aneha Agarwal, Bruce Babcock, Chetan Bhatia, Christopher Barrett, Michael
Carter, Arup Chatterjee, Srinivasa Rao Gattineni, Maryam Golnaraghi, Diana Gruscynski,
P. Sai Gunaranjan, Molly Hellmuth, Harini Kannan, Priya Jaisinghani, Vatsal Joshi,
Anuj Kumbhat, Richard Leftley, Vijay Mahajan, Reinhard Mechler, P. Nagarjun, Ravi
Nathan, Hariprasad Neella, StevenWere Omamo, Daniel Osgood, B.L Parthasarathy,
P.D. Rai, Nikhil Raj, N.V. Ramana, Kolli Rao, Sridhar K. Reddy, Rupalee Ruchismita,
Priya Satya, Alexander Sarris, Alok Shukla, Jerry Skees, Ashlesha Suvarna, Dhanyagrit
Taweesuk, Juerg Trueb, K. Vasumathi, Venup, Marjorie Victor and Witoon Watchapan.
The publication was ably edited by Chris Jarzombek and Lynn Ball.
5