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R4 Rural

Resilience

InitiativePartnership for

resilient livelihoods

in a changing climate

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Cover image:

Community rehabilitates degraded

land to increase agriculturalproductivity and reduce drought and

ood risk in WFP supported activities.

Copyright: WFP/Riccardo Gangale.

For the 1.3 billion people livingon less than a dollar day whodepend on agriculture ortheir livelihoods, vulnerabilityto climate-related shocks is aconstant threat to ood securityand well-being.

As climate change drives an increase in the

requency and intensity o natural hazards,

the challenges aced by ood-insecure

communities struggling to improve their

lives and livelihoods will also increase. The

question o how to build rural resilience

against climate-related risk is critical or

addressing global poverty.

In response to this challenge, the United

Nations World Food Programme and

Oxam America have launched the R4 Rural

Resilience Initiative, known as R4, reerring to

the our risk management strategies that the

initiative integrates.

R4 builds on the initial success o a holistic

risk management ramework developed by

Oxam America to enable poor armers to

strengthen their ood and income security

through a combination o improved resource

management (risk reduction), microcredit

(prudent risk taking), insurance (risk transer),

and savings (risk reserves).

Background

Copyright: WFP/Vanessa Vick

www.wp.org/disaster-risk-reduction

www.oxamamerica.org/issues/insurance

The rst example o this pioneering approach

is the Horn o Arica Risk Transer or

Adaptation (HARITA) project, a joint initiative

led by Oxam America, the Relie Society o

Tigray (REST), Swiss Re, the International

Research Institute or Climate and Society

at Columbia University (IRI) and a dozen

other public and private partners, including

Ethiopian armers, local aid organizations,

insurance companies, and climate experts.

HARITA has broken new ground in the eld o

rural risk management by enabling Ethiopias

poorest armers to pay or crop insurance

with their own labor. In its rst three years

o operations in Ethiopia, HARITA has shown

promising results or replication, increasing

the number o households taking out

insurance rom 200 in the initial year to over

13,000 in 2011.

R4 represents a new kind o partnership

bringing public and private sector actors

together in a strategic large scale initiative

to innovate and develop better tools to help

the most vulnerable people build resilient

livelihoods.

R4 promises to leverage the respective

strengths o its par tners: Oxams capacity

to build innovative partnerships; the WFP s

global reach and extensive capacity to

support government-led saety nets or the

most vulnerable people.

Horn of Africa Risk Transferfor Adaptation (HARITA)

As the original collaborator on risk transer

in Ethiopia, Swiss Re is supporting R4 as a

ounding sponsor and will provide technical

leadership in the eld o insurance and

reinsurance.

This partnership will enable thousands

more poor armers and other ood insecure

households to manage weather vulnerability

through an afordable, comprehensive risk

management program that builds long-term

resilience.

The Partnership

Mulu-Birkan Mehari, 25, checks

a rain gauge

Copyright: Oxam America/

Eva-Lotta Jansson

A armer carrying his tef rom the eld

Copyright:Oxam America/Eva Lotta Jansson

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The R4 partnership will test and develop

a new set o integrated tools that extendthe risk management benets o nancial

services such as insurance and credit to the

most vulnerable populations.

R4 ocuses on mechanisms that can be

integrated into social protection systems,

including productive saety nets, so that

the results can be applied at a much larger

scale by governments and international

organizations, i successul. For example,

insurance or work - a key part o the R4

approach and an innovative ood assistance

tool - can be used not only to expand access

to insurance, but can be added to labor-

based saety nets to protect beneciaries

and reduce costs or governments and

donors rom the disruptions caused by

climate disasters.

By combining HARITAs successul model or

participatory design and capacity building,with WFPs global capacity and Swiss Res

innovative risk transer solutions, R4 will

help accelerate the scale-up and testing o

this innovative approach while expanding

grassroots capacity to new communities

across Ethiopia and other countries.

R4 also constitutes a rst step toward

developing a sustainable insurance market

or poor people, an essential actor in

ensuring armers livelihoods and ood

security over the long term.

Looking Forward

Medhin Reda, 45, a armer and her

daughter Tekleweini Girmay, 7, in their

corn eld in Adi Ha. A participant in the

tef crop microinsurance pilot in her

community, Reda pays or the premium

with her labor.

Copyright:

Oxam America/Eva Lotta Jansson

The World Food Programme is the worlds

largest humanitarian agency ghtinghunger worldwide. Each year, on average,

WFP eeds more than 90 million people

in more than 70 countries.

www.wp.org/disaster-risk-reduction

With support rom

Oxam America is an international relie

and development organization that createslasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and

injustice, working with individuals and local

groups in more than 90 countries. Oxam

America does not receive unding rom the

United States Government.

www.oxamamerica.org/issues/insurance

With support rom

The R4 Rural Resilience

Initiative is a strategic

collaboration between the

World Food Programme and

Oxam America, with no

co-mingling o unds.

Each partner has its ownsponsors as listed. R4 is

inviting donors to support

expansion.

Collaboration