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Insurance experiments conducted in Kyrgyzstan

29 August 2018

Long summer droughts and heat waves like this year are rare for Europe. In Central Asia, however, which was repeatedly confronted with such climate events over the last 10 to 15 years, they are a common phenomenon.

In scope of the project “Increasing climate resilience via agricultural insurance - Innovation transfer for sustainable rural development in Central Asia” (KlimALEZ), a team of IAMO researchers is developing novel drought insurance products in cooperation with the Humboldt-University zu Berlin, Germany, as well as local and German insurance companies.

Within this project, the IAMO researchers Ihtiyor Bobojonov, Lena Kuhn and Laura Moritz conducted insurance experiments in Kyrgyzstan from 15 to 25 July 2018. The aim was to gain insights into Kyrgyz farmers’ understanding of and interest in an index-based drought insurance for wheat production. So far, local farmers don’t have access to an agricultural insurance that might support their risk management. After being introduced to the insurance concept during focus group discussions and insurance experiments, farmers expressed interest in such an innovative risk management tool. In the next step of the project, a pilot insurance product will be marketed in the region.