How We Work
Adaptation & Resilience

We help Africa’s financial sector build resilience to the biggest risks the continent faces, including climate change and nature loss.

We do this by helping to scale insurance and finance solutions that boost adaptation and resilience. Our work focuses on crowding in funds and resources through large-scale partnerships, catalysing innovation, and building capacity.

Adaptation and Resilience

Africa’s prosperity is threatened by its vulnerability to climate change and other external shocks, like economic downturns and health crises. Climate-related disasters alone cost some African countries more than 10% of their GDP each year. That’s why resilience is vital to Africa’s economic development.

When people and businesses have access to reliable financial services, like savings accounts, credit and insurance, they can manage risks more effectively. This stability builds sustainable growth and helps to tackle poverty. But the low resilience of households, businesses and governments in Africa is worsened by weak demand for risk solutions, and by the low-quality supply of them. We’re working to close this protection gap.

Our unique approach creates maximum impact by focusing on large partnerships and large-scale transactions, and by catalysing innovative market solutions. We focus this work on sectors with the most significant long-term risks and the greatest need for resilience: climate, nature, health and agriculture. Within these sectors, we take a targeted approach to achieve the dual objectives of:
  • Incentivising sustainable investment
  • Reducing vulnerability through financial solutions.

  • Policy and regulations: Integrating adaptation and resilience into policies and regulations to manage risk and ensure timely and effective actions.
  • Market infrastructure: Scaling the implementation of tech and data solutions, to support adaptation projects, facilitate cheaper climate insurance and improve transparency for investors.
  • Financial institutions: Building the capacity of financial institutions to identify, measure and act on climate risks and opportunities in both their investment and underwriting portfolios.
  • Financial products: Scaling innovative financial products that boost climate adaptation and resilience investments, and increase access to risk solutions for vulnerable communities.
  • Knowledge platforms & connectivity: Developing ecosystem platforms that drive collective market action on adaptation, enhance knowledge, build capacity and advocate for change.

Our adaptation & resilience programmes are achieving tangible impact across Africa:

BimaLab
African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA)
Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance (NDSI)
Lagos State Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan (LCARP)

insurtechs
accelerated $35 million raised
157 products and services developed

members
managing $1.3 trillion of assets

members
across 36 countries

committed project financing for LCARP pipeline projects, a futher $1.2bn in feasibility, and a 33-large project pillar worth $9bn under development
BimaLab – Neo Insurers Training Initiative
In Portfolio since 2021
1 year
Value
£50,000
Location
Nigeria
+
BimaLab – Neo Insurers Training Initiative

NITI will involve training of selected incumbent insurance companies with intended development of a digital insurer and digital sandbox concept in Nigeria. In Africa, risk markets remain nascent, competition minimal, and incumbents sluggish at innovating. Many incumbent insurance companies use the term “digital transformation” to refer to any initiative that uses digital technology to conduct business however most of these companies are still far from implementing digital solutions. The goal of the training initiative is to push incumbent traditional insurer to become a digital insurer through development of an innovation hub within the company. The innovation hub will apply digital sandbox mechanisms to test the solutions with targeted interactions from the regulator

Watch the interview: Insurtchs in Kenya: Insurtchs aims expands reach of insurance in Kenya

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In Portfolio since 2021

1 year

Value

£50,000

Location

Nigeria

BimaLab West Africa
In Portfolio since 2021
1 year
Value
£65,000
Location
Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria
+
BimaLab West Africa

BimaLab is a platform that will be hosted by the insurance regulators with the support of FSD Africa, that attracts, inspires and organises key players and disruptors across the financial industry and technologies to collaborate on ground-breaking, innovative insurance products and services. The overall goal of the program is to create an Insurtech ecosystem for growth and strategic partnerships.

The program has the following objectives:

  • Foster innovation that can extend access to insurance products and services to communities and businesses that are historically underserved or excluded.
  • Turn validated insurance-focused ideas to market and investor-ready
  • Provide innovators with an enabling regulatory environment for developing their ideas, including support in starting out, training, mentorship, and coaching.
  • Facilitate the effective exchange of information relating to deepening access to financial services and opportunities for entrepreneurs across Africa.
  • Create new networks and strengthen existing networks leading to strategic partnerships

Watch the interview: Insurtchs in Kenya: Insurtchs aims expands reach of insurance in Kenya

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In Portfolio since 2021

1 year

Value

£65,000

Location

Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria

Digital Financial Innovation Platform
In Portfolio since 2022
3 years
Value
£150,000
Location
Kenya
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Digital Financial Innovation Platform

This intervention aims to increase the number of accessible and affordable insurance products across Sub-Saharan Africa, through the active development of insurtech ecosystems. The mechanism for achieving this is an online Digital Innovation Platform – creating a digitally-based ecosystem that enables the next-generation of insurtechs to develop a pipeline of scalable, regionally replicable use cases. The platform will be a ‘one-stop innovation shop’, with an ecosystem of insurtech partners using the online space to connect, collaborate, host events, ideate,incubate and accelerate viable ideas, store content and learn.

To pilot the project , we have worked on creating a digital BimaLab- an incubation program for insurtechs , to allow the program to continue to support the startups beyond the lifetime of the incubation cycle through engagement with incumbents, regulators, mentors and investors.

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In Portfolio since 2022

3 years

Value

£150,000

Location

Kenya

Geothermal Risk Transfer Facility
In Portfolio since 2021
4 years
Value
£460,000
Location
Ethiopia, Kenya
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Geothermal Risk Transfer Facility

The programme will leverage local insurance capital to de-risk renewable energy development and thereby catalyse private investment into green energy projects in Africa. This will be done through establishing a joint underwriting facility, backed by East African insurers, to initially cover the early-stage development drilling risk for investors in geothermal projects. Furthermore, this underwriting facility should further develop to cover other speciality risks in the renewable energy sector and the broader climate mitigation & adaptation sector in Africa.

The programme will implement the following work:

  1. Technical capacity development and facilitation of East African insurance sector stakeholders
  2. Advocacy and technical assistance on regulatory adaptation
  3. Support to structuring and execution of a joint underwriting facility
  4. Advocacy and technical support to fundraising from African investors for geothermal investment

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In Portfolio since 2021

4 years

Value

£460,000

Location

Ethiopia, Kenya

Lagos Flood Resilience
In Portfolio since 2022
2 years
Value
£750,000
Location
Nigeria
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Lagos Flood Resilience

The megacity of Lagos is extremely vulnerable to flooding, but Lagos State Government’s management of flood risk is currently inadequate. A significant shortcoming is the almost complete non-utilisation of market-based financial instruments to increase resilience. This dismisses the important contribution that the private financial sector can make to risk reduction (through investment in resilient infrastructure) and risk management (e.g. through insurance).

FSD Africa is supporting Lagos State Government (LASG) in utilising financial markets instruments to improve flood resilience by collaborating with commercial financial sector stakeholders. These instruments will enable disaster risk reduction (DRR, through investment in resilient infrastructure) and disaster risk financing (DRF, e.g. insurance).

FSD Africa’s support to Lagos State Government along two major lines:

  1. Development and implementation of a Flood Resilience Finance Framework and Policy for Lagos State. This will define the role of the financial sector and its instruments in flood risk management.
  2. Support to financial transactions (infrastructure investments, risk transfer) by businesses or public sector that would significantly improve the state’s flood resilience.

FSD Africa is collaborating closely with the Office of the Governor of Lagos State, and with several businesses in various sectors (e.g. financial sector, waste management) as well as specialist advisers and NGOs.

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In Portfolio since 2022

2 years

Value

£750,000

Location

Nigeria

Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance
In Portfolio since 0
2025 years
Value
£50,000
Location
Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria
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Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance

The Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance was launched by UN Environment Programme’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative (PSI) during the 4th PSI African Market Event on 22 April 2021. The event was hosted by ICEA LION Group and supported by Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa) and African Risk Capacity. It was  established to mobilise the Africa insurance industry to support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Nairobi Declaration will bring together local and international Insurance firms to promote the achievement of SDGs, and make it easier for them to understand the commitment to support the achievement of the SDGs.

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In Portfolio since 0

2025 years

Value

£50,000

Location

Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria

National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)
In Portfolio since 2021
1 year
Value
£122,300
Location
Nigeria
+
National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)

FSD Africa will conduct technical assistance to enhance NAICOM’s ability to fulfil its development, regulation and supervision mandate to support market development, market stability promoting innovation, and protection of policyholders. We will support market development for innovation and strengthen regulatory and supervisory frameworks in line with international standards by developing a risk-based capital framework. The technical assistance will focus on the following:

  1. Support on Insurance Market Development to establish a framework for promoting innovation in the insurance industry.
  2. Support on Risk-Based Capital framework development

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In Portfolio since 2021

1 year

Value

£122,300

Location

Nigeria