Publication database

This case study focuses on L’Occitane’s involvement with the shea sector in Burkina Faso. The report explores the inclusive business model of L’Occitane, which includes the sourcing of shea butter from rural cooperatives and the provision of capacity development for the supplying communities. The study presents constraints and the solutions adopted by the company in Burkina Faso as well as its results, including economic, social and environmental impacts.

This study sought to enable SNV-Zimbabwe identify and understand the groundnuts value chain dynamics regarding actors (from farmers to firms), channels, markets trends, viability and production and consumption trends. 

Such an understanding would inform SNV’s overall exploration of ways to support groundnuts production and productivity through, inter alia, enhancing private sector participation and increasing the number of smallholder farmers pursuing groundnuts production on a commercial basis under the RARP CSF Oilseeds component and for the benefit of other agencies and actors who wish to intervene in this sub-sector.
 

Research Paper #24 evaluates the impact of introducing a new health insurance product in rural Kenya. Health insurance was found to reduce net health expenditure and informal borrowing for medical costs, and to increase non-food and overall consumption. However, the study observed no significant differences in health outcomes between the control and treatment groups.
Demand for the product proved sensitive to price discounts, but not to training in financial and risk literacy. The main determinants of renewal were positive or negative experiences, rather than hospital use or price.

The Zimbabwean dairy subsector currently remains strained by a serious shortage of skilled and experienced technical staff as well as by other constraints. This study makes recommendations to address these issues.

Research Paper #23 examines how uninsured risk constrains farmers in Northern Ghana. It shows that when provided with insurance against the primary catastrophic risk they face, farmers are able to increase expenditure on their farms and make riskier choices. The study finds a strong demand for insurance among these farmers. Insurance payouts further increase this demand in subsequent years both among recipients and among their social networks.

In this video interview, Andy Harner, global cocoa director for Mars Chocolate, discusses working with FSG on a shared value initiative to support farmers and cocoa production in Côte D'Ivoire.

Research Paper #21 assesses the risk mitigation capacity of weather index-based insurance for cotton growers in Northern Cameroon. It finds that weather index-based insurance is associated with huge basis risk and thus has limited potential for income smoothing. The authors use a tractable definition of basis risk to show that calibrating parameters in sub-regions allows to reduce dramatically basis risk and to avoid non negligible balancing out between distinct geographical zones.

Research Paper #22 analyses free-riding and coordination problems in health microinsurance in Tanzania. Microinsurance games played with microcredit clients confirm that less risk averse clients are tempted to free-ride and forgo individual insurance and demonstrate limited coordination failures under individual insurance. Group insurance increases demand in the games. These findings provide a potential solution for low uptake of microinsurance.

Research Paper #19 reviews evidence collected from a microinsurance field experiment in rural Ethiopia. The experiment involves collecting data from individuals in order to predict the shape of the demand curve for indexed insurance. The study finds that the relationship between demand for index insurance and wealth levels is none linear and that individuals with intermediate levels of wealth have the highest demand while the richest and the poorest exhibited much lower demand. This observed demand curve is then compared with demand curves that have been generated using different economic theories regarding how people make economic decisions.

Two important challenges in establishing and sustaining community-based insurance (CBI) schemes are low rates of community member enrolment and high lapse rates. These factors lead to low CBI coverage which in turn results in low levels of revenue for the risk carrier and limited risk-pooling, which leave CBI schemes financially and organizationally vulnerable to unexpected changes in incomes or high disease incidence. In Research Paper #15, an experimental design is used to examine how the relationship between insurance providers and health care facilities - and more specifically payment mechanisms for services delivered by health workers - can influence uptake and renewals. The research discovers that the way health care workers are remunerated by the risk carrier can crucially determine CBI performance and quality of health services as payment mechanisms also influence the way healthcare is delivered. Based on the results from this experiment, a revised CBI payment system based on health workers preferences was introduced in the Nouna district of Burkina Faso in January 2011.