The Insurance Development Forum (IDF), a public-private partnership led by the insurance industry and supported by the UN, World Bank and other international organisations, has entered into a new trilateral partnership with MapAction and Start Network.
The partnership will work to accelerate anticipatory action and disaster risk reduction in eight climate-vulnerable countries.
IDF industry members will support and fund the work of MapAction, which will deliver geospatial and information management services to help Start Network members to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to humanitarian emergencies with the right information for critical decision making.
Organisations supporting and funding the IDF Anticipatory Action and Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative include Aon, AXA, AXIS Capital, Milliman, Willis Towers Watson, Swiss Re Foundation and the Zurich Insurance Group.
Start Network – a global network of more than 50 humanitarian agencies – aims to connect frontline responders to risk data and finance, so they are better prepared to respond to crises at scale.
It aims to achieve this through its new Start Ready risk finance programme, which was launched at CoP26.
The programme, which started in 2021, is planned to run until 2023, and includes Bangladesh, Kenya, Madagascar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
“The backbone of this IDF initiative, as highlighted by the work of Start Network, is to drive more effective humanitarian action by using an anticipatory approach to reduce the impact of disaster risks. MapAction’s support will enable earlier, faster and more efficient crisis response,” said Michel Liès, Chairman at Zurich Insurance Group, and Deputy Chair of the IDF Steering Committee.
“As with any initiative of this nature, funding plays a crucial role, and thankfully, the collaborative efforts of IDF members will enable work to be carried out through timely funding to help reduce risks, and vitally, to provide local communities with the tools they need to prepare and plan for damaging events,” Liès continued.
“This initiative is a milestone for the IDF in this area, and we are delighted to play a role in helping fund this project. It paves the way for us to initiate future projects too.”
Liz Hughes, CEO of MapAction, also commented: “We are very excited to be working on this project as we believe it can make a real and lasting difference for disaster affected populations. MapAction will provide the Start Network and its members with a combination of historical and real time hazard data analysis, vulnerability analysis, maps and more.”
“By converting all of that into usable situational information and visualisations for critical early decision making, we can enable better informed humanitarian decisions, and ultimately save lives and reduce suffering.”
Christina Bennett, CEO of Start Network, further stated: “Through risk and knowledge pooling, we know we can help save lives and livelihoods at a reduced cost, while empowering communities to make decisions about their own futures. Start Ready is based on this goal; it is a structure for innovative crisis financing mechanisms to deliver more effective and locally led global humanitarian action.”
“Over the years, we have found that humanitarian crises, from floods and cyclones, droughts and pandemics, tend to occur in regular patterns. As the re/insurance sector knows well, the data and technology exist to manage these risks at an aggregated level, and pilot projects have proved the benefit of anticipatory action. Now, with the collaborative efforts of MapAction together with the IDF members and their funding support, it is hoped we can build a shared financial infrastructure to ensure these funds go so much further.”
