08 The power of partnerships In the drought-prone Horn of Africa, we renewed our engagement with the World Bank’s De-Risking, Inclusion and Value Enhancement of Pastoral Economies (DRIVE) programme. This allowed us to expand our pastoral livelihoods portfolio while boosting our market presence. Our written premiums and share of coverage increased fivefold to 10% in the region. ARC was also repositioned as Africa’s first multi-peril risk pool this year, pioneering the continent’s inaugural multiyear, multi-peril agreement, offered to Djibouti. This fiveyear deal provides ongoing capacity building and disaster risk insurance coverage against the country’s two most prevalent threats – drought and excess rainfall. It is also the first time that we are covering excess precipitation. In October, the Sovereign Risk Pools signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding that will increase cooperation and collaboration and take our service to nearly 100 nations to the next level. This watershed MoU opens up new possibilities in technical innovation, operational excellence, and climate advocacy through our joint initiatives. A significant partnership forged in 2021 that unites us with the United Nations Development Programme Côte d’Ivoire, the Côte d’Ivoire Environment and Sustainable Development Ministry (MINEDD), local agricultural and insurance bodies, and other technical partners, resulted in the launch of a groundbreaking meso insurance programme, safeguarding the country’s cocoa and rice farmers. This came after regulatory approval and endorsement from WFP was secured. We currently provide coverage for 5 000 beneficiaries with subsidy support from the WFP. COP28 We attended COP again this year and convened four panels of leading speakers to discuss developments and innovations in climate risk insurance solutions in Africa. We contributed insights on several forums, articulating the risk pools’ unified vision to scale up insurance coverage for the most vulnerable communities affected by climate change. We also took the opportunity to announce the launch of our insurance partnership with the One Acre Fund to provide agricultural insurance to their five million smallholder farmers in Africa, and we welcomed the UN Refugee Agency on board as our new Replica partner. Each year COP reminds us that when united behind a common purpose, we can achieve unprecedented impact. Valuable contributions We remain extremely grateful for our donors’ and partners’ continued support; their generosity in 2023was a testament to their trust and belief in us. Our work and critical role in mitigating the impacts of climate change would not be possible without their support. Together, we are focused on safeguarding the most vulnerable populations in Africa as natural disasters continue to become more severe and frequent. In 2023, we received a US$12 million grant from USAID for our Africa Disaster Risk Financing Project to increase the uptake of our products across the continent and for research and development. Additionally, the Canadian Government pledged US$8.9 million towards our Replica Programme. The funds will be channelled to the World Food Programme (WFP) to protect two million climate-vulnerable people and assist up to 10 African governments over the next four years. We also received a US$25 million funding commitment from the Dutch government at COP28. We appreciate our donors’ and partners’ commitment to ARC Ltd. over the years, which has allowed us to grow in our mission and vision of covering 200 million African people by 2025. The need, however, is so much greater – 700 million people on the continent are climate-vulnerable. We continue striving to mainstream disaster risk insurance and bringing more countries on board. L EADERS I N BUS I NESS , NURTUR I NG AFR I CAN TAL ENT AND I NNOVAT I ON
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