Insurance technology company Blue Marble has announced a new partnership with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Climate Finance for Development Accelerator (CFDA). With a grant provided under the CFDA’s Adaptation Finance Window, Blue Marble will scale a replicable financing programme in Kenya to strengthen the climate adaptation of coffee farmers connected to global supply chains. Although three quarters of Kenya’s population (37 million people) live in agriculture-dependent rural areas, only 3% are protected by insurance to cope with financial losses. The programme will work with regional financial service providers to enable access to credit and insurance services – including revenue insurance to protect farmers’ income. Launched in support of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), the Adaptation Finance Window is an effort to utilise catalytic grant funding to de-risk the development and scaling of private sector-led climate adaptation approaches in frontier and emerging markets. Kenya’s 560,000 smallholder coffee farmers are largely uninsured against the effects of climate change and often experience significant income and crop losses – thereby also disincentivising much-needed financing and investment. Under the programme, farmers will receive automated pay-outs when predetermined parameters are met following a climate-related event. Blue Marble plans to scale it to 50,000 farmers by 2025. “We are proud to launch this programme in collaboration with USAID to showcase how public-private partnerships can create an innovative and cost-effective safety net for coffee farmers and their families,” said Jaime de Piniés, CEO at Blue Marble. “We hope [it] will serve as a model for other regions and supply chains around the world.”
