Publication database

As the microinsurance industry grows there is an increasing need to scale up insurance education efforts and educate a wider audience. Audio-visual media is an attractive dissemination channel to achieve this because it is strongly anchored in the lifestyle of low-income people in developing countries. Briefing Note #18 explores the stages of such campaigns and presents lessons learnt.

In the last decade, some insurance associations (IAs) have expanded beyond their traditional core functions to develop insurance consumer education (ICE) programmes.  IAs, as the representatives of the industry are well-positioned and ideally suited to invest in ICE. By investing in ICE they not only promote consumer protection but they also contribute in improving the reputation of the industry. Excerpted from Microinsurance Paper no. 31, this brief summarises steps that the IAs should take during the preparation of an ICE.

Consumer education can be one important component of microinsurance schemes; it benefits microinsurance practitioners by stimulating demand and helps low-income households make informed decisions. Led by ILO's Microinsurance Innovation Facility, Briefing Note #3 summarizes feedback collected by the Microinsurance Network's Insurance Education Working Group from more than fifty practitioners who were early implementers of consumer education schemes. The authors highlight key design features for content and delivery of education and provide examples of organizations that have successfully implemented the features in consumer education programmes. In the last section, they review the challenges of sustainability and monitoring and evaluation that are especially relevant for practitioners who want to integrate education into their business models.

This short report explores the business opportunities in emerging markets with new households spending data released by the world bank group.

Index-based insurance is an innovative financial service that can help smallholder farmers manage some of the risks related to weather conditions. On one hand, the increasing availability of this financial service offers a big opportunity to both farmers and providers. On the other hand, the complexity of this risk management tool can lead to poorly-understood index insurance products that may do more harm than good. This Briefing Note has been produced as part of the Global Action Network to advance agriculture insurance, a partnership between the Facility, USAID and the BASIS Assets and Market Access Innovation Lab/I4 Index Insurance Innovation Initiative at the University of California Davis.

The factsheet shortly explains the role of IFC in financing inclusive business endeavours. Describing untapped business opportunities among low-income communities, the article emphasizes the win-win of inclusive business models for economic growth and human development.

The paper gives a general definition of inclusive business models and the base of the pyramid. Additionally IFC’s basic approach to foster inclusive business is explained as well as the process from classifying referring companies and types of inclusive business models, to reviewing them.

This factsheet briefly describes nine job centres in eight cities of Colombia which offer business counselling, entrepreneurship training, and career opportunities particularly to internally displaced persons, women, indigenous people and persons with disabilities.