News | Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience

A New Kind of Drought Insurance for Women in Kenya’s Arid Rangelands

by Alex Russell
May 17, 2022

In Samburu, Kenya, MRR researchers are testing "Family Insurance," which they designed to respond to women's needs in taking care of their families during drought.

A Digital Game to Improve How Index Insurance Promotes Resilience to Drought

by Alex Russell
November 25, 2019

SimPastoralist is a digital app the MRR Innovation Lab is using in northern Kenya to explain index-based livestock insurance while collecting data that can help design insurance that responds better to women’s needs.

Leveraging Machine Learning to Improve Livestock Insurance for Pastoralist Families

by Andrea Esquetini
October 24, 2019

Index insurance and risk management

NDVI has been commonly used to build index insurance, a type of insurance that in the past decade has protected tens of thousands of pastoralist families in eastern Africa from drought. Now, a new technology may be on the brink of beating NDVI on predicting forage quality, and it comes from an entirely different field.

Uganda Builds Capacity on Index Insurance to Expand National Program

by Alex Russell
February 20, 2019

A February 14-15, 2019 conference in Uganda convened 85 researchers and regional experts on agricultural insurance implementation and policy for to add to work already underway.

David Ameyaw, founder and president of ICED and a member of the AMA Innovation Lab advisory board

Africa-based Think Tank Event Highlights the Role of Evidence in Development Policy

by MRR Innovation Lab
August 08, 2018

More than 300 leaders from world governments, the donor community, researchers and the private sector participated in the ICED “Evidence to Action Conference 2018” in Nairobi on July 24-25 to enhance sustainable collaboration and knowledge sharing and to reinforce demand-driven, evidence-based policy.

A Research Collaboration in Kenya Seeks Durable Empowerment for Women

by Alex Russell
March 07, 2018

Poverty graduation programs, which transfer assets and skills, can set women on a path toward higher income and greater empowerment at home, but in the arid rural parts of northern Kenya drought can force them to liquidate their gains so the family can survive.