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Index-based insurance is an innovative financial service that can help smallholder farmers manage some of the risks related to weather conditions. Considering the lessons and insights gathered from index insurance and financial education projects, as well as from the field of behavioural economics, the Global Action Network to advance agriculture insurance (GAN), coordinated by the International Labour Organisation’s Impact Insurance Facility and supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has worked to put together guidelines for index insurance education to support the industry to deal with this task.

This study by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) delves into the transformative potential of postal networks into well-suited providers of insurance. The report concludes by presenting three types of business models in which postal insurance can help advancing financial inclusion through insurance access.

Informal finance mechanisms are as diverse as they are ubiquitous, including institutions such as rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs), accumulating savings and credit associations (ASCAs), informal moneylending, loan brokers, and burial societies, to name a few. Such mechanisms may or may not be 'traditional', and range from simple to complex. They attend to diverse needs such as consumption smoothing, enterprise financing, promoting savings discipline, and intermediation between savers and borrowers. Arguably, the core-identifying characteristic of informal financial institutions is that emphasize inter-personal relationships, rather than relying on anonymous interaction between a client and a formal institution.