AFIYA
Accelerating Financial Resilience & Insurance for Young African Women in Agrifood Systems
Supporting young women in agriculture to better manage climate risk.
About AFIYA
Smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs play a central role in food production and rural economies, yet remain among the most exposed to climate shocks.
AFIYA is a five-year, multi-country programme designed to strengthen climate resilience and financial inclusion for young women in agrifood systems. The programme works across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal to expand access to affordable, gender-intentional agricultural insurance and complementary financial services for young women smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs.
Smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs face droughts, floods, pests, and changing weather patterns, while access to agricultural insurance and financial protection remains extremely low.
AFIYA is designed to help close these protection and access gaps while strengthening policy, regulatory, and data systems for sustainable scale.
By combining financial protection with market-building, AFIYA aims to help create agricultural insurance systems that are more accessible, responsive, and sustainable for young women across Africa.
What Makes AFIYA Different
Building the Systems Behind Sustainable Insurance
Many agricultural insurance programmes have focused primarily on expanding access to insurance products, often without investing in the systems needed to make those products sustainable, affordable, and capable of reaching scale over time.
AFIYA takes a different approach by helping strengthen the financial and market infrastructure that supports inclusive agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs in agrifood systems.
This includes supporting:
- Insurance solutions tailored to the realities young women face in agriculture
- Bundled approaches that combine insurance with credit, savings, and access to climate-smart farming tools and practices
- Stronger partnerships between insurers, financial institutions, aggregators, and delivery platforms
- Better climate and risk data to support product development and pricing
- Policy and regulatory environments that enable innovation and scale
- Trusted delivery channels that can reach young women more effectively
What AFIYA Aims To Do
Three Interconnected Pillars
The programme is built around three interconnected pillars, moving from product to trust to system-level change.
01 — Develop
Co-create and scale affordable, gender-intentional insurance solutions
- Insurtech partnerships
- Local market strengthening
- Bundled financial products
- Innovative reinsurance approaches
02 — Adopt
Drive trust and uptake among young women
- Financial literacy and insurance education
- Community engagement
- Youth leadership and peer influence
- Trusted delivery channels
- Bundled insurance and credit solutions
03 — Enable
Strengthen the systems required for long-term scale
- Regulatory engagement
- Policy reform
- Climate and insurance data systems
- Market coordination and ecosystem strengthening
Expected Outcomes
Over five years, AFIYA is working toward measurable, lasting change for young women in agrifood systems across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Improve climate resilience for at least 378,000 young women across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Expand access to affordable, gender-intentional agricultural insurance.
Strengthen insurance market systems, partnerships, and enabling environments for long-term scale.
Generate lessons that can help shape future agricultural insurance approaches across Africa.
Meet the AFIYA Team
Elias Omondi
Programme Director, AFIYA
Partners
AFIYA is led by FSD Africa in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation.
Get In Touch
Let's Work
Together
For enquiries about AFIYA — including questions about partnerships, the programme, or how your organisation can get involved — please reach out to the FSD Africa team.
elias@fsdafrica.org