In the words of Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, “climate change is happening right now and it is hitting the poor first, and hardest.” For poor people living in the rural, agricultural areas of the world, extreme weather events (floods, droughts, hurricanes) can often plunge whole families into financial ruin which in turn can lead to malnutrition, sickness and death. In the West we have long prepared for such unexpected phenomena by insuring ourselves, houses and possessions against the elements.

We take the ability to insure ourselves against the unexpected for granted whilst people in the developing world have to cross their fingers and hope for the best. In years gone by insurance products for these farmers have been too expensive for them to afford and insurers have been reluctant to offer cover to people living in areas with high risk to agriculture.

That is beginning to change: new and exciting weather indexed micro-insurance initiatives are being introduced in a variety of regions around the world. As the international community prepares to mitigate the effects of climate change, there is a real opportunity to increase and expand these initiatives.

This month we are going to be asking the heads of several states that are already running such initiatives to use their strong stance on micro-insurance to persuade other countries to do the same.

Image courtesy of uncultured