On 7th October 2021, I published a blog “Behind the wheel: Women Driving the Pacific’s first parametric microinsurance product” highlighting the contributions of nine amazing women from partner institutions of the UN Capital Development Fund-led Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme (PICAP). The Programme developed and launched the Pacific’s first ever index-based parametric micro-insurance product in Fiji in August 2021. Without these nine women, PICAP would not have been able to achieve its goals last year and their contribution will be equally important in 2022. It was indeed a new experience for all involved, especially UNCDF’s implementing partners that included insurance companies, cooperatives and agriculture agencies. For them, being part of this journey was in many ways a new experience altogether. It meant breaking down traditional barriers, changing business models and adopting newer approaches for enhanced customer engagement. And the work never stops.

The 2020 financial services demand side survey in Fiji points to a reasonably high financial inclusion rate, at 81% of the adult population, but insurance penetration is still low at 15%. These figures are a lot lower for other Pacific Small Island Developing states (PSIDS). And a significant gender gap and disparity in both access and usage of formal financial services exists in all PSIDS, including Fiji. The Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII), hosted by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), one of the implementing partners of PICAP, has developed a ‘5 Facts on Gender equality and access to disaster risk finance in Fiji’ publication that was released on International Women’s Day.

The key highlights include:

• Women in rural areas are often more exposed to climate risks, and use different coping mechanisms after a natural hazard
• Women use different coping mechanisms after natural hazards
• More men than women own bank accounts and have access to financial services, including digital financial services
• More women than men have access to internet banking
• Climate risk insurance can improve the financial preparedness of Pacific households

Factoring all of the above, PICAP has developed a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Strategy that will guide its approach towards including women and other vulnerable groups into programming activities to ensure that “No one is left behind in the Digital Era”. To ensure that the objectives of the GESI strategy are met, the Programme has invested in identifying and building the capacities of women within implementation partners, a topic I covered in my earlier blog. The annual results for 2021, especially the ‘gender inclusion’ numbers, on relevant indicators amply demonstrate the role played by women champions driving the implementation and contributing to the overall excellent results. With 32% of the total number of beneficiaries under the region’s first parametric micro-insurance product being women, and 5% being people with disabilities, the Programme and its partners are well on their way to meaningfully include the vulnerable and marginalized, building their financial preparedness and resilience.

The GESI strategy has been developed through solid research, interviews with women’s groups and other disadvantaged segments and received useful inputs from relevant stakeholders. The strategy aims to create inclusive market solutions that provide equal access to climate and disaster risk financing and insurance products to women and similar vulnerable groups. It provides a framework for integrating and mainstreaming gender and social inclusion at the Programme and operations levels with robust monitoring and results reporting.

The important themes that define the Programme’s approach to mainstreaming gender and inclusion of other vulnerable groups, which are also covered in the GESI Strategy are:

1. Conducting a gender gap analysis before developing an intervention with partners and grantees to include the findings in product development and also an analysis of existing products. Some of the questions that are explored include information on accessibility, accountability, distribution as well as communication channels and measures already in place for each group
2. Collecting sex-disaggregated data is also key when subscribing beneficiaries to climate insurance as it helps in effective monitoring of insurance products
3. The Programme launched the GESI assessment tool that is based on six principles to ensure products and services are inclusive and identify any potential gaps. The six principles relate to: use cases, enrolment, accessibility, communication, access to funds and ecosystem services
4. PICAP works with partners to test and support innovative distribution channels that are particularly suited to the needs of women and marginalized individuals
5. Indicators have been identified and developed to evaluate and monitor PICAP`s gender equality and social inclusion strategy

In addition to the above, the programme has also started conducting capacity building workshops on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, literacy campaigns and supporting as well as partnering with women-led associations and businesses.

On this occasion of International Women’s Day, I salute and acknowledge the role of the women who are the torchbearers of implementation within our partner institutions, ably supported by women members of the PICAP team and to all our beneficiaries who are at the forefront of our GESI activities. Together, we are working hard to #breakthebias.