Press release
Transforming Ethiopia’s Agricultural Insurance through Partnership

Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Association of Ethiopian Insurers (AEI) to strengthen the country’s agricultural insurance ecosystem and enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers against climate and market shocks.

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South-South Learning
Building Resilient Agricultural Insurance Systems: Lessons from Rwanda

“What would it take for Ethiopia to establish a successful national agricultural insurance scheme?” Agriculture is the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy, contributing a third of the GDP and employing nearly two-thirds of the population.

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Blog and video
Closing the Protection Gap: How Ethiopia’s Insurance Innovation Challenge Fund Is Building Resilience

In 2022, Ethiopia suffered an estimated $250 million in losses due to climate-related disasters. More than 95% of those losses were uninsured. For families, this meant selling off assets or falling deeper into poverty.

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Publication
Building resilient agricultural finance and insurance markets in Ethiopia: the Rural Finance Service Unit

Building resilient and inclusive agricultural finance and insurance markets requires new thinking and collaborative action. The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and UNDP invite feedback and comments on all matters in this consultation paper, which has been prepared under the framework of the UNDP Financial Resilience in Agriculture Initiative, funded by the Gates Foundation.

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Press Release
Ethiopia announces new government unit to expand access to agricultural finance and insurance

The Government of Ethiopia announced the creation of its first Rural Finance Service Unit (RFSU), a major step toward building a more resilient and inclusive agricultural finance and insurance market. Housed within the Ministry of Agriculture and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the new unit aims to address systemic market barriers limiting access to rural credit and agricultural insurance for millions of smallholder farmers.

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Call for applications
Inclusive Insurance Challenge Fund

UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility (IRFF) is launching an Inclusive Insurance Challenge Fund (IICF) Hackathon to support the private insurance sector in developing innovative insurance solutions that can improve the resilience of vulnerable communities, households and businesses.

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Press Release
Addressing the need for a paradigm shift in the insurance industry in Ethiopia

An Insurance Risk Financing Facility (IRFF) was launched today to help Ethiopia build the capacity of communities and businesses to manage shocks. The facility will help to develop accessible, affordable, and innovative insurance products for farmers and businesses to bounce back stronger from socio-political as well as climatic shocks.

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News
Ethiopia's insurance landscape and opportunities for risk financing

Ethiopia’s economy and households are exposed to the impacts of disaster shocks, with women and girls being disproportionately affected. Droughts, floods, and related food insecurity are the primary drivers of disaster response costs, and the number and magnitude of these drivers are projected to further increase, as average temperatures and periods of extreme rainfall are projected to increase by the end of the century (World Bank).

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News
Inclusive Insurance and Risk Financing in Ethiopia

Stakeholders from the insurance industry, government representatives and development partners met in Addis Ababa on 28 March 2023 to identify and design a mechanism to address key challenges and ultimately move Ethiopia’s insurance and risk financing effort to the next level.

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Related Content - Story from the field
Piloting Weather Insurance for Ethiopian Farmers to build Resilience

In late October 2015, a total of 12,000 smallholder farmers in four regions started to benefit from Ethiopia’s first weather index insurance claims payment to cover the loss for this year’s crop failure due to El Nino.

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