Humanitarian agencies are setting up innovative climate risk insurance policies to protect up to 1.3 million people in West Africa from catastrophic drought. The countries benefitting include Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and the Gambia. These policies will unleash funds to assist vulnerable communities threatened by drought before it reaches catastrophic levels. Collectively, the purchased policies could release a total of US$ 49.5 million across the five countries. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Start Network have purchased these “replica” climate risk insurance policies from the African Union’s Africa Risk Capacity (ARC), complementing those purchased by national governments. This initiative, which is known under the name ‘ARC Replica’ allows... Read More