With the global advancement of transformative technology, digital education and social media, women are more connected today than ever. This has fostered greater access to financial services, such as insurance, through mobile apps and other digital platforms. Increased access to financial services can be a lifeline for women during climate shocks, such as cyclones or flooding, both common occurrences in the Pacific region.

This year’s UN International Women’s Day theme is ‘DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality.’ Today more than ever, technology plays a significant role in how we live and work. The Commission on the Status of Women has noted that ‘women’s full participation and decision-making in innovation, technological change and digitalisation is a pre-requisite to deliver transformative impact in societies and achieve the SDGs.’ This is an important and recurring theme in the work of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in the Pacific, in line with our own global strategic priority to ‘leave no-one behind in the digital era.’

UNCDF’s flagship Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme (PICAP) launched a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) strategy in May 2022. The strategy provides clear and precise guidance and information on achieving gender equality and inclusion in the access to and usage of parametric micro-insurance products. The Pacific’s first such products were launched by PICAP in 2021 and enhanced in 2022, providing coverage against cyclones and excessive rainfall. It is offered in the market by three private insurers: FijiCare, Sun Insurance and Tower Insurance. FijiCare issued the first claim payouts via digital wallets last month to 559 farmers, fishers and MSME owners, amounting to over FJ$100,000. Nearly 50% of the recipients were women and 200 people with disabilities.

One of the recipients was Emele ‘Emily’ Qio, a member of the Cane Farmers’ Co-Operative Savings and Loans Association Ltd (CCSLA), farmer, community leader, and MSME owner. Following a bout of intense rainfall over five consecutive days in Fiji’s Western Division in early January, Ms. Qio received a parametric micro-insurance payout directly to her mobile wallet. Her premium was subsidised through the joint UNCDF-UN Women project in Partnership with Women’s Resilience to Disasters (WRD) and Markets for Change (M4C) to empower selected women beneficiaries with awareness and capacities on climate and disaster risk finance and insurance.

Emily Qio, MSME owner

“When I received the payout via Mpaisa (mobile money), I thought, did I (really) receive this digital money? I was excited and thankful, knowing this was a way to improve things,” Ms Qio said.

The excessive rainfall damaged her farm, and she struggled to restart her business without any other form of support. The quick payout of claims and the non-requirement for any verification of losses were features of the product that Ms Qio described as ‘empowering.’

“I believe that microinsurance will help my business reach another level and that banking through CCSLA and [access to other] micro-products can help people,” she said.

Since receiving the payout, Ms. Qio now advocates for parametric insurance in her community and urges others to sign up, adding: “I live in an area where flooding is the norm. Receiving the payout has helped me feed my family and stand on my own feet instead of waiting around [for support].”

Another recipient, Kalesi Ladua, a farmer, caterer, and former chef from Fiji’s tourist enclave of Nadi, said payouts through digital channels made the process easy and efficient. Ms. Ledua began farming after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Fijian economy hard. Parametric micro-insurance was a new concept for her, but she signed-up after learning about its potential benefits from CCSLA.

Kalesi Ledua, farmer, caterer, and former chef in Nadi, Fiji

The first payout has left her even more convinced about the need for such financial protection in the face of the growing threat from extreme weather hazards. Ms. Ledua re-invested the payout into her business to buy items for her canteen business and generate more income. She is encouraging other women in business to purchase the product to financially protect their assets and investments against extreme weather events.

Ms. Ledua and Qio’s cases show that when women are well-equipped with digital tools, access to financial services is greater, and gender equality and social inclusion goals have a better chance of being met. The impact of parametric insurance is already turning heads in the Pacific, and digital tools have played a significant role in this. Digital technologies can be critical to the sustainability of novel financial instruments, such as parametric insurance, and strengthen efforts to build financial preparedness and resilience of Pacific women and socially marginalized populations.

The parametric micro-insurance solutions benefitting women covered above has been developed by the Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme being implemented by UNCDF as the lead agency, with the UN Development Programme and the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security as supporting partners. The Programme is supported by the Governments of New Zealand, Australia and Luxembourg.

UN Women has partnered with UNCDF through the Markets for Change Project, implemented by UN Women and UNDP, with support from the Governments of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and through the Women’s Resilience to Disasters Programme supported by the Australian Government and implemented in the Pacific by UN Women.