The Executive Secretary, Her Excellency Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax held a bilateral meeting with the Director General of the Africa Risk Capacity Agency, Mr. Mohamed Beavogui, on 27th January 2017. The objective of the meeting was to discuss modalities for cooperation between the SADC and ARC in order to promote issues of mutual interest.
The meeting noted that the African Risk Capacity (ARC) was established as a Specialized Agency of the African Union (AU) to help AU Member States improve their capacities to better plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters, thereby reduce the vulnerabilities. The Director General of ARC highlighted that ARC established a financial affiliate, the African Risk Capacity Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd). Through the ARC Limited, countries are able to pool their natural disaster risks into a single portfolio and access risk capacity in the international markets to support a more timely response to disasters. The insurance premium paid is based on a drought risk model, the Africa RiskView, which is one of the critical elements of ARC to create value for its Member States. The model is customized for each country and it reflects the country’s historical drought risk profile, poverty profile and current farming practices. This not only provides early warning but enables countries to put in place necessary contingency measures including insurance to deal with extreme weather related or natural events.
The two Parties noted the great potential for collaboration in enabling their Member States benefit from disaster risk management. In this regard they agreed to explore modalities of cooperation with a view to complement the activities of the Region that aim to reduce vulnerability, increase resilience and ultimately reduce poverty.
