Swiss Re launches Climate Adaptation Development Programme

Swiss Re launched the Climate Adaptation Development Programme (CADP), which is designed to offer financial protection for weather related risks in emerging countries, during the Clinton Global Initiative 2007 meeting.
Swiss Re will partner with Millenium Promise, a non-profit whose goal is to lift African villages out of poverty, and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, who has pioneered climate modeling and climate risk management approaches, according to a release.
The objective is to create and apply climate risk indices for Ethiopia, Ghana, Keny, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda home to 400,000 residents.
Based on the indices, Swiss Re will design financial risk instruments and bring them to the commercial financial market. In addition, it will support related research and risk assessment, and engage in complementary corporate citizenship initiatives, according to a release.
Climate change is a fact and some of its consequences have become inevitable. Parallel to efforts that aim at reducing emissions we have to improve resilience against changing weather conditions, particularly in emerging markets, Ivo Menzinger, head of Sustainability and Emerging Risk Management, said in a release. Our Climate Adaptation Development Programme will contribute to develop a risk transfer market that will ultimately help smallholder farmers buy agricultural inputs, overcome a lack of collateral, draw upon agricultural extension services and accumulate income.