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.

Uninsured risk had far-reaching consequences for rural growth as well as poverty reduction. A range of informal mechanisms to insure rural households against the impact of shocks, but they are a modest component of a risk layering strategy for well-off households and even less protective for low-income households. Formal insurance mechanisms have inherent market imperfections. State interventions to address these limitations have proven costly and generally are targeted poorly. Recent developments in microfinance as well as in insurance marketing have opened new possibilities for household risk reduction. Index insurance, such as weather indexing, addresses other inherent problems in insurance by using an indicator that is not affected by individual behaviour and may address monitoring costs and moral hazard. A number of innovations using index insurance are being tried currently in diverse settings ranging from India to Mongolia to Malawi. Marketing costs may limit the provision of such insurance to small farmers, but even in such cases microfinance institutes may serve as market intermediaries. Moreover, state and submational governments can use insurance to achieve countercyclical funding programs. In this vein, municipal governments in Mexico have used insurance to finance disaster contingency while the World Food Program has insured a portion of its emergency assistance to Ethiopia. Humanitarian organizations and NGOs may also seek insurance in this manner.

This book provides guidelines and technical recommendations on microfinance based on expert presentations and cases from around the world.

This book addresses some of the major challenges of food systems associated with a diversity of agricultural contexts and priorities. It contributes to the conversation on global food and nutrition security by unpacking the intertwined connections between food system resilience, food policies, and global food markets. The contributing authors provide careful analyses of how shocks to food systems (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns) and crises to global food systems (e.g., the global food price crisis of 2008) have disrupted the food value chains in ways that undermine global initiatives to achieve food and nutrition security for all. The book is divided into two sections. Section 1 focuses on global food systems transformation with the goal of moving towards resilience. Two chapters in this section employ a global context approach to address the key factors undermining food systems’ resilience and sustainability. Section 2 presents case studies drawn from Africa, Asia, and Europe with different pathways for the transition to food systems resilience, highlighting the importance of policy approaches as well as smart and innovative strategies to ensure the production of nutritious foods at affordable costs, the reduction of food wastage, and the valorization of sub-products.

This open access book discusses the current role of smallholders in connection with food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. It addresses the opportunities they enjoy, and the constraints they face, by analysing the availability, access to and utilization of production factors. Due to the relevance of smallholder farms, enhancing their production capacities and economic and social resilience could produce positive impacts on food security and nutrition at a number of levels. In addition to the role of small farmers as food suppliers, the book considers their role as consumers and their level of nutrition security. It investigates the link between agriculture and nutrition in order to better understand how agriculture affects human health and dietary patterns. Given the importance of smallholdings, strategies to increase their productivity are essential to improving food and nutrition security, as well as food diversity.

Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. In their attempts to design and implement agricultural insurance, they have sought technical and financial assistance from the international community and particularly from the World Bank. One of the recurrent requests from governments regards international experience with agricultural insurance, not only in developed countries, where in some cases agricultural insurance has been offered for more than a century, but also in middleand low-income countries. Governments are particularly interested in the technical, operational, financial, and institutional aspects of public support to agricultural insurance. 'Government Support to Agricultural Insurance' informs public and private decision makers involved in agricultural insurance about recent developments, with a particular focus on middle- and low-income countries. It presents an updated picture of the spectrum of institutional frameworks and experiences with agricultural insurance, ranging from countries in which the public sector provides no support to those in which governments heavily subsidize agricultural insurance. This analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank s agricultural insurance team in 2008 in 65 developed and developing countries. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.