Announcement: Canada commits financing for the scale-up of the InsuResilience Centre of Excellence on Gender-smart Solutions
The InsuResilience Global Partnership is pleased to announce a financing agreement with the Government of Canada for the advancement of activities under the InsuResilience Centre of Excellence on Gender-smart Solutions (‘the Centre of Excellence’).
Canada has committed 1.6 million Canadian dollars to the Centre of Excellence over the coming years. This support complements existing efforts provided by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (‘BMZ’) and will allow the InsuResilience Secretariat to scale up existing activities. These include the development of guidance notes, research papers, and capacity building activities to bridge knowledge gaps and enhance the implementation of gender-smart approaches in all aspects of Climate and Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance (CDRFI), from the local to the global scale.
On the announcement of Canada’s financing at the High-Level Consultative Group (‘HLCG’) meeting held on 1st June, Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Patricia Fuller, stated that “the Centre of Excellence is a valuable resource for all of us, and with our collective efforts, it can transform the way we respond to gender-specific needs in climate and disaster risk financing and insurance products, to enhance protection from the impacts of climate change.”
In a meeting of the HLCG held in September 2020, members endorsed the Declaration on Gender which signalled to the international community the importance of integrating gender-smart solutions within the climate and disaster risk finance framework. This step reaffirmed the prominent positioning of gender within the Vision 2025 which places gender mainstreaming as one of two cross-cutting objectives of the Partnership’s Vision, together with the Pro-poor principles. The Declaration provides a set of principles for members to aspire to and supports the promotion of gender equality, equity and enhance gender-responsiveness in their activities.
Supporting the Declaration on Gender, the establishment of the InsuResilience Centre of Excellence on Gender-smart Solutions was announced in December 2020, at the high-level event of the Partnership’s Annual Forum by Secretary General of CARE International, Sofia Sprechmann Siniero and Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Patricia Fuller.
Cam Do, Executive Director of the Climate Finance Division in Global Affairs Canada and co-chair of the InsuResilience Gender Working Group, commented that “this enhanced support to the Centre of Excellence will accelerate efforts for a sector-wide transformation toward gender-smart climate and disaster risk finance and insurance”.
Sven Harmeling from CARE International and co-chair to the Gender Working Group, further commented that by “promoting and scaling-up pro-poor and gender-responsive instruments of climate and disaster risk finance is important to increase the protection of vulnerable communities against climate risks. By sharing experience and knowledge the Centre of Excellence can play a conducive role to apply good practice solutions. Therefore, CARE also welcomessupport to enhance the Centre’s capacity which hopefully can also support knowledge generation by and from the intended beneficiaries of climate and disaster risk finance in developing countries.”
Additionally, our co-chairs encourage members of the Gender Working Group to come forward and share ideas with the InsuResilience Secretariat to ensure that the activities driven by the Centre of Excellence serve the needs of the broad membership base of the InsuResilience Global Partnership and the wider CDRFI community.
Finally, on behalf of the InsuResilience Secretariat, Dr Astrid Zwick expressed “there is great demand from our membership to take bolder steps towards gender-smart approaches. With this enhanced funding we can catalyse our efforts and drive forward inclusive and transformative solutions that reach the most poor and vulnerable people and help build resilience for individuals, local and global communities”.
The Centre of Excellence is an online repository of information and a knowledge-exchange platform that generates and bundles knowledge, guidance and resources to guide practitioners towards being more gender-informed. The Platform will be fully launched at COP26.