Tearfund

Ethiopia | Early Warning System, Humanitarian, Mapping and weather alerts

The problem

Ethiopia’s lowlands are facing their fifth prolonged drought impacting agro-pastoralist communities whose livelihoods are climate dependent. Most agro-pastoralist communities in these areas lack access to proper weather information which hinders their ability to monitor real-time climate information which will enable them to make informed decisions and take up anticipatory actions that will either help mitigate or prevent the socio-economic consequences. Access to insurance products is almost non-existent in agro-pastoralist communities due to the cost of policies and administrative barriers to applying and qualifying for insurance with limited recourse. Weather forecasting messaging remains limited in scope in agro-pastoralist communities, who need it the most due to the lack of weather-forecast literacy by district-level weather-forecast agents and farmers.

The organisation

Tearfund is a charity organisation, tackling poverty and injustice through sustainable development, by responding to disasters and challenging injustice. Tearfund focuses on meeting emergency needs, mobilising churches, transforming communities and changing society to tackle extreme policy through humanitarian response, community development and advocacy and influencing.

Project description

The GSMA is supporting Tearfund to:

Sensitise cooperative and self-help group members and smallholder groups on the benefits of parametric insurance.
In partnership with Nyala and Yokahu Insurance companies, Provide parametric insurance. The Members will access the insurance via the jamii.one platform
Provide weather forecasting data and farmer extension advice to the farmers via Viamo platform
Roll out the Jamii.one technology for the cooperative and self-help groups, and digitise small holder groups and cooperatives’ financial recording.
Disseminate climate information to farmers and pastoralists via SMS and IVR through the Viamo platform.
Link small holder groups with the financial institutions through Jamii.one platform technology.

A message from the Project Lead

“Accessing index based insurance products on a mobile phone app is ground breaking in Ethiopia. It will revolutionise the way pastoralists and farmers in drought affected communities anticipate and mitigate the effects of drought related disasters on their livelihoods. This concept is quite new in Ethiopia but meets the real needs of a substantial portion of the population in the southern and eastern regions of the country. There’s also great potential to deliver this solution at scale in other regions.”

– Mahider Tulu, Project Lead