GIZ assists Ghana to develop insurance to mitigate climate risk

By Lydia Kukua Asamoah, GNA Special Correspondent, Bonn, Germany

Bonn, Germany, Nov. 22,  - GIZ, a German Development Agency, in collaboration with the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII), is partnering countries including Ghana to develop a climate resilience toolbox to mitigate climate impact in these countries.

Ghana is currently validating her toolbox initiative to gather inputs from various stakeholders that would be working with it in the communities and at the national level.

Ghana’s toolbox is primarily designed for government officials in the agricultural sector at the macro and micro levels, which were in the process of improving their disaster risk management framework and implementing interventions in the agricultural sector.

During a side-event at the just ended UN Conference of Parties (COP23) on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, Ms Gaby Ramm, Advisor to the GIZ and a member of the MCII, said the toolbox, among other things, was intended to support disaster management and enable information flow on extreme weather and its effect on the agricultural sector.

It would also allow countries to determine whether their current disaster risk management mechanisms were effective and efficient as well as identify the gaps that needed to be addressed.

Ms Ramm noted that the toolbox was to help review and design relevant response and recovery programmes to help build more resilient systems and enable government officials to further support micro, small and medium enterprises.

Dr Daniel Asare-Kyei, the Consultant for GIZ Risk Toolbox Validation in Ghana, said: “The toolbox is an approach process that would guide people in developing insurance product for the agriculture sector.”

He said Ghana’s Toolbox Draft was ready and being tested among potential users to solicit their views on its relevance.

He said their feedback would culminate in finalising the documents that would be published and made available to key stakeholders like Ministry of Finance, Food and Agriculture and the National Disaster Management Organisation.

Later in an interview with the GNA in Bonn, Dr Asare-Kyei said the toolbox took care of every phase of disaster risk management adding that the validation would close by the end of November and the final document published early 2018.

He said GIZ and NADMO were the institutions that were promoting the toolbox and seeing to its actual implementation.

The toolbox addresses priorities and builds on practical experiences of adaptation decision-makers in countries like India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Tunisia, South Africa, Grenada and Germany, which were all partner countries of the Inventory of Methods for Adaptation to Climate Change (IMACC) Project.

GIZ, has therefore, produced multiple tools for monitoring and evaluation of adaptation to climate change at the national and project level.

The international community more and more realises the need for urgent and concrete action in mitigating climate change and addressing its impacts by effectively supporting vulnerable countries efforts to manage climate change induced disasters.

This need was particularly recognised during the June 2014 G7 Summit as well as the 2014 UN Climate Summit in September, and was a main issue during the UNFCCC COP-20 in 2014, the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015 as well as the 2015 G7 Summit.

As a risk transfer instrument, climate risk insurance is able to mitigate adverse consequences of climate-change related extreme weather events and could minimize the cost and optimise the timing of meeting post-disaster funding needs without compromising development goals, fiscal stability and help to alleviate human suffering while decreasing the loss of livelihoods.

The overall objective of the G7 CRII, therefore, is to stimulate the creation of effective climate risk insurance markets in relevant regions worldwide.

From November 6-17, government delegates and leaders from all sectors of society gathered in Bonn, Germany under the Presidency of Fiji, to discuss how to make progress for a successful, inclusive and ambitious implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

This included negotiations on the implementation guidelines for transparent climate action under the Paris Agreement, as well as showcasing cooperative climate action, including vulnerability and resilience from around the globe.

GNA