> Aid for Development - on 09/02/2007

Micro-insurance, Insurance, Reinsurance: Effective Tools for Development

By Jean-Michel DEBRAT, deputy general manager of the French Development Agency (AFD), Marc NABETH, consultant CGSI-consulting insurance/micro-insurance, Associate Fellow of Thomas More Institute, and Michel VATÉ, professor at Lyon Institute of Political Studies, Associate fellow of Thomas More Institute. Note N° 11 available in English and in French.

As the France-Africa Summit is to take place on the 15th and 16th of February 2007, and as France is to elect a new President who will have to deal with issues concerning development (immigration, strategic raw materials, co-development, WTO), the Thomas More Institute brings a new contribution to the insistent question of new solutions for development aid. This note follows the research works begun 3 years ago with professor Vaté around the subject of insurance in the service of development. During a Round table in June 2006, the Thomas More Institute brought together 3 experts to freely debate the opportunities offered by the development of micro-insurance and the perspectives that we can expect from the expansion of insurance and reinsurance for developing countries. Marc NABETH, the author of the first sum in French on Micro-insurance, shows the growth of this sector in many emerging or developing countries, in Asia, South America as well as in Africa. He proves that the populations’ adhesion to formal insurance is possible as long as this insurance is financially, geographically, and culturally accessible. He explains how some insurers support the development of new socio-economic networks by securing the advantages they were granted. Michel VATÉ, in the continuity of the works he has already done for the Thomas More Institute, insists on the necessity to fight against the “economic insecurity spiral” that the populations suffer from when facing risks which, when they happen, put them in a more precarious situation. He details here, among other things, the concept of Planet Re, a world capacity of available reinsurance, linked to the world financial markets. Jean Michel DEBRAT, with a wealth of experience as a “developer”, underlines what the development of insurance solutions can bring by stabilising and making their economic capacities last, especially for the rural populations. He also confirms that an agency such as the AFD has a particular interest in news solutions for development aid, among which insurance seems to be very promising.

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