[File Photo]

The United Nations Capital Development Fund has covered almost 5000 households in Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu in its paramedic index-based microinsurance schemes’ pilot phase under the Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme.

The Reserve Bank supports the project, and speaking during the UNCDP ACAP webinar last night on the program, Deputy Governor Esala Masitabua says this has created a landmark in the Pacific region’s fight against the impact of climate change.

Masitabua says Fiji and the Pacific are extremely vulnerable to climate impacts and natural disasters, and this costs a fortune while at the same time reducing the prosperity of Pacific island nations.

“Cyclones floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, the economic impact caused by these event runs into millions of dollars each year, seriously affecting the growth and the prosperity of our countries and its people and for a long time as a sustainable solution to address and offer immediate financial redress to the affected vulnerable communities has been alluding the region.”

Masitabua says all these changed in 2021 with the inception of the UNCDF Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Program, or PCAP.

He says UNCDF has put together an ecosystem of private and public sector partners, actively supported by the government, and established a proof of concept that has demonstrated that market mechanisms have a significant role to play in addressing the economic impacts of extreme climate events.

With the Climate Risk Insurance Solutions in the Pacific, farmers, fishermen, market vendors, and small business owners can now have access to these innovative climate insurance products, which are digitally delivered and offered at affordable premiums.