Click here to watch the full opening ceremony and welcoming remarks to the ICMIF Centenary Conference

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) works with a wide range of issues including poverty and increasing inequalities but also governance, law and human rights issues as well as preventing disaster and addressing risk.

The socio-economic crisis that evolved throughout the pandemic has only been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Decades of human development have been eroded around the world. The UNDP Human Development Report issued this year (2022) found that nine out of 10 countries in the report have seen a decline in two consecutive years in human development. This is unprecedented in the 32 year history of this report.

Six out of seven people across the world feel more uncertain than ever before and only 30% of the world’s population have trust in other people in their close neighborhood. There has also been a sharp increase in mental illness, 10% higher than a decade ago. The UNDP believe that working on the ground and with ICMIF members is the way to rebuild trust and recreate the social contract, within countries and internationally.

Financial resilience is central to everything the UNDP do and insurance has to be part of the solution. Ways to support countries increasing their investment in human development need to be found. While many of the richer nations have had the opportunity to do this, the majority of developed countries and also middle income economies did not have the fiscal space to do so.

Investment, innovation and insurance are three recommendations of the Human Development Report. The partnership with ICMIF is key to this and the UNDP want to see how they can support ICMIF members in the work they are doing in their local communities and internationally. They have launched an insurance Innovation Challenge Fund with ICMIF, which will allow them to bring members experiences and ideas to an international level, build on them and develop products.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) have partnered with the ICMIF Secretariat and its members since 2019. In recent years, conflicts, climate change, COVID-19, and poverty have increased vulnerabilities around the world, particularly developing countries but we are all being impacted by the climate emergency, these risks manifesting in larger and more expensive disasters.

Those living in Africa, Central and South America, South Asia and small islands in developing nations are 15 times more likely to die from a climate disaster. The UNDRR’s recent Global Assessment Report on disaster risks foresaw a 40% increase in the number of medium to large scale disasters averaging 1.5 disasters every day of the year. A single large disaster can set developing nations back decades and derail a country off its development trajectory.

Insurance is vital to narrowing the protection gap and creating a more resilient world. Working with ICMIF members, the UNDRR has been able to pioneer new tools and methods that can better protect lives and livelihoods such as the seven mechanisms for how cooperative and mutual insurance can support disaster risk reduction, illustrated in the publication From protection to prevention: The role of cooperative and mutual insurance in disaster risk reduction launched in 2020.

Below are six opportunities where the UNDRR and ICMIF members can collaborate further to significantly scale up resilience-building efforts:

• First, exploring new ways to increase funding for disaster risk reduction.
• Second, collaborating to improve disclosure of disaster risk-related information by the private sector.
• Third, promoting the adoption of the Principles of Resilient Infrastructure designed by UNDRR in consultation with the private sector and more than 100 UN member states.
• Fourth, participation in the ongoing Midterm Review Process of the implementation of the Sendai Framework.
• Fifth, participate in UNDRR Roundtable Dialogues.
• Sixth, joining and engaging with the alliance of private sector entities (ARISE) network, which is the committed to disaster risk reduction working with UNDRR.

The cost and scale of disasters are only projected to increase as long as the drivers of risk remain. Insurance and other forms of financial protection play a critical role in supporting disaster recovery, but even more can be gained, and saved through prevention.

The midterm reviews of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework will show that we are far from the goals and need to find out what is needed to put us back on track. All stakeholders have a role and the role of the cooperative and mutual insurance sector is already happening as shown through the seven mechanisms based off member case studies. Future activities need to be geared towards building resilience and not creating new risk.

Session speakers:

• Ulrika Modéer, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)
• Shaun Tarbuck, Chief Executive, ICMIF, moderator