Agricultural Insurance Evidence Programme
Agriculture is a major source of sustenance for rural populations in low- and lower middle income countries. Farmers face numerous risks, including crop and livestock losses due to weather, pests, diseases and price fluctuations. In recent years, agricultural insurance has gained increased attention as a tool to provide smallholder farmers and their households with much-needed safety nets by enabling them to transfer risk to a third party. There is, however, a dearth of evidence on whether these insurance products are successful in improving smallholder farmers’ welfare. To close this gap, 3ie is supporting the generation of policy-relevant evidence on factors that affect successful uptake of agricultural insurance among smallholder farmers.
To help inform programme design, 3ie commissioned a scoping report to take stock of existing evidence and identify key research areas based on gaps in evidence found through a mapping exercise. In phase one, 3ie awarded 14 grants for formative or process evaluations of programmes focused on increasing the uptake of agricultural insurance. In phase two, 3ie gave six teams additional funding to conduct full impact evaluations. These studies will contribute to the evidence base on the effectiveness of financial instruments in reducing, mitigating and transferring risks faced by smallholder farmers.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are funding this programme.
For more information, please write to info@3ieimpact.org. To receive alerts about call for proposals, please sign up here.
