On February 7^th, the Navarra Center for International Development organized the Workshop “Climate Risk and Agricultural Insurance in Bolivia” in La Paz, Bolivia. The event was funded by 3ie under the Grant “Understanding Agricultural Insurance in Bolivia”, that was recently awarded to NCID under the Thematic Window on Agricultural Insurance.

Twenty-three persons were present, which included local researchers, NGOs that work with smallholder farmers, representative of the Inter-American Development Bank, the Swiss Cooperation in Bolivia, and government agencies, such as the Ministry of Rural Development and Land, the National Institute of Agricultural Insurance, and the National Statistics Bureau). Also present were representatives from commercial banks and private insurance companies.

During the workshop, seven contributive sessions were held. Ricardo Nogales, from the Private University of Bolivia, presented his work: “Towards Weather Index-Based Crop Insurance in Bolivia”. Franklyn Condori, from the Ministry of Rural Development and Land, presented the Ministry’s progress on agricultural risk management. Germán Gallardo, from the National Institute of Agricultural Insurance (INSA), presented the results of the publicly subsidized agricultural insurance, Pachamama, during the last four years. He also presented how INSA plans to offer commercial agricultural insurance products in the future. Edwin Vargas, from Fundación PROFIN, described PROFIN’s experiences in conducting six agricultural insurance pilots throughout Bolivia. Ricardo Rocabado, from the National Statistics Bureau, concisely explained the results from the most recent Bolivian Agricultural Census. Finally, José Alfaro, from Sudamericana Seguros, a private insurance company, and Christian Pinera, from La Boliviana Ciacruz, another insurance company, each exhibited their experience in the agricultural insurance sector.

Overall, the workshop opened the discussion on the most pressing constraints that hindered the proper flourishment of agricultural insurance markets in Bolivia. Most interventions mentioned the fact that more climatic information is needed. Participants also agreed on the need for more academic work on this topic, further pilots to test several paradigms to ascertain how to increase take-up among small and medium farmers.