Drought Risk Information for the African Finance Sector (DRIAFS)

Drought poses an ongoing threat to over 200 million African farmers, trapping them in poverty and hindering national development. Financial services like weather-based index insurance (WII) and forecast-based finance (FbF) can offer a safety net by providing crop insurance or financial aid during anticipated drought periods, enabling farmers to purchase crucial resources like food, livestock, and seeds. However, data that accurately captures on-ground conditions is essential for effective implementation of WII and FbF. While TAMSAT rainfall-based products have been widely used (>3M farmers insured annually using TAMSAT data), they don't always align with farmers' experiences. TAMSAT's near real-time soil moisture monitoring and forecasting service could address this issue, provided there is sufficient knowledge and capacity within the financial sector to exploit the data.

The societal benefit of WII and FbF has, moreover, been hindered by a broader issue: the limited access to these services among households led by women. However, there is now a chance to bridge this gap. Although there remains a gender disparity in accessing traditional agricultural extension services, the gap in mobile phone access has narrowed. Inclusive mobile services hold the potential to broaden the availability of services for households led by women, thus reducing the inequality in accessing drought management tools and information. With the recent introduction of a new soil moisture dataset, there is an opportunity to refresh TAMSAT's data provision approach, aiming to enhance equitable access to all TAMSAT products.

Within DRIAFS, I will lead a programme of activities that will give the financial sector the knowledge, tools and confidence to allow them to develop and implement soil moisture-based financial services while providing female farmers with greater opportunities to access such services. For this, I will exploit TAMSAT's new operational rooting-depth soil moisture dataset. As lead developer of the TAMSAT soil moisture and rainfall monitoring services, I am ideally placed to undertake this work.

The transfer of knowledge will be underpinned by a practitioner-designed toolbox that will reduce technical challenges in accessing drought information. The full toolbox will enable financial service providers access to soil moisture and other drought data while a mobile-friendly version will give farmers the ability to access tailored drought information, allowing them to independently verify the drought data that the financial products are based on. The provision of better targeted financial products combined with easily accessible satellite-based drought information will increase trust between women farmers and the financial sector, thereby promoting buy-in of soil moisture-based financial services.

DRIAFS will partner with a group of financial service providers who are leaders within the African financial sector, some of whom I have established strong relationships with. I will bring to the project over a decade of experience in developing satellite-based climate services and experience in fostering collaborations within the finance, agricultural and humanitarian aid sectors in Africa. The depth of experience amongst the project partners on the gender gap in access to agricultural financial services will help guide the project to ensure that TAMSAT services better target female-led households and importantly, will develop my personal understanding of gender considerations which will benefit this project as well as future TAMSAT climate services.

In summary, DRIAFS will build the capacity of the African financial sector to develop equitable access products that robustly identify drought conditions. Partnership with leading practitioners in Africa will enable soil moisture-based financial products to rapidly reach market and provide cover to millions of farmers, resulting in fairer pay outs and better protection against drought.