Rare and WTW
Breaking the insurance barrier for vulnerable coastal populations in Latin America
Key Details
Project Lead: Fundación MarViva
Supporting Partners: The Artisanal Fishing Federation of Costa Pacifica Chocoana (FEDEPESCA), the Colombia’s National Authority of Aquaculture and Fisheries (AUNAP), the Regional artisanal fishing federation in Gulf of Montijo, Panama (FEPACOIBA) and the Red del Golfo, regional community-based organization in Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica (Red del Golfo).
Financial Support: The UK’s Blue Planet Fund
Location: Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia
Project Timeline: 2024-2027
People Supported: 1,826
Summary
Fundación MarViva is working with coastal communities to strengthen the financial resilience of small-scale fishers and incentivise sustainable fishing by improving access to microinsurance products.
Artisanal fishers are often burdened by unfair lender schemes and exclusion from savings, credit, or insurance because of the informal nature of their work. As a result, they are repeatedly exposed to the potential loss of revenue, impacting their lives and livelihoods. Through the use of microinsurance, MarViva aims to halt the vicious cycle of poverty and natural resource degradation experienced in vulnerable coastal areas.
Developing customised microinsurance safeguards the livelihoods of fishers. Building on successful pilots, in partnership with artisanal fishing organisations in Costa Rica and Panama, MarViva will now focus on the northern Pacific of Chocó, Colombia, an area of significant ecological and social value, to strengthen capacity and experience before replicating and scaling the work to other coastal populations.
Challenge
The artisanal fishing sector along Colombia’s Pacific littoral endures multidimensional vulnerabilities, from minimum income, illiteracy and isolation in remote coastal areas, to a lack of access to health facilities, education, fresh water, transportation, security and other essential public services. Although families strive to maintain basic subsistence and livelihood conditions, they are immersed in an ongoing cycle of poverty. Their struggles are further exacerbated by the overexploitation of marine ecosystems and the impacts of climate change.
Solution
This project’s approach to building financial resilience will focus on developing capacity for the provision and adoption of financial tools, including complementary efforts such as raising awareness of financial services, promoting the creation of microinsurance tools, implementing community-based savings mechanisms, and facilitating knowledge dissemination, all under the framework of responsible fishing dynamics.
Scaling and Next Steps
Artisanal fishers in particular are impacted directly by changes in both the weather and the physical and chemical properties of the Ocean. This can result in increased operational costs when trying to find alternative fishing grounds, loss of fishing days, damaged assets, and/or personal and family insecurity and instability associated to climate hazards, life, and livelihood vulnerability.
The success of the pilot phase in Costa Rica and Panama demonstrates the scope to replicate and scale to other vulnerable coastal populations in Colombia and beyond.
“Thanks to the ORRAA project, the resilience of the communities of the La Red del Golfo has been strengthened in face of climate change impacts, through insurance policies.”
– Gloriana Díaz, President of the Golfo de Nicoya Network (Red del Golfo), Costa Rica
