UNDP, Germany, UK and Insurance Development Forum announced commitments to increase insurance protection in climate-exposed countries

The United Nations, Germany, the U.K., and the insurance industry announced a series of coordinated commitments aimed at increasing climate change resilience for the most vulnerable countries.

The organizations teaming up to make these commitments in an unprecedented, coalescent drive for concrete action, are the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID) and the Insurance Development Forum (IDF).

The commitments will contribute risk management expertise and capital to realize the Vision 2025 of the InsuResilience Global Partnership, which rallies global players towards a substantial scale-up in the use of pre-arranged risk finance and insurance mechanisms as part of global resilience and adaptation ambitions. It includes the provision of cover against disaster and climate shocks to 500 million individuals, as well as an increase in the percentage of annual climate and disaster losses covered by risk finance and insurance.

“We stand at a pivotal moment in time with climate change causing more frequent; and more severe storms, floods and droughts,” says Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator. “Our environment, water resources and biodiversity are under assault from pollution, warming oceans, rising sea levels and ever-increasing temperatures — insurance and risk financing are critical means to help properly tackle these issues. UNDP is committed to markedly increasing its risk financing and insurance portfolio, working across inclusive insurance, insurance investments and natural capital while mainstreaming the fundamentals of risk, and risk-financing into key development processes”.

The German Development Ministry is already providing some 450 million euros for the expansion of climate insurance and risk financing.

UK International Development Secretary Alok Sharma said: “Every year natural disasters force an estimated 26 million people into poverty. As the pace of a changing climate increases, the effect felt by the world’s poorest will only increase.

“Our increased support will make sure developing countries can better prepare for and deal with the devastation caused by extreme weather and natural catastrophes.”

Original source: UNDP
Published on 22 September 2019