Project profile — Improving Access to Agricultural Insurance in the Casamance Region in Senegal

This project seeks to support the economic empowerment and resilience of women farmers in Senegal’s Casamance region by improving their access to agricultural insurance as a way to mitigate the impact of climate change. The project focuses on the availability of financial products and services tailored to the needs of women farmers and enhances their ability to access and use them. Project activities include: (1) providing training and support to women farmers so they can access and use financial products and services, including agricultural insurance; (2) building the capacity of grassroots cooperatives and regional financial institutions to tailor their range of products and services to the needs of women; (3) developing and implementing an innovative business model for distributing agricultural insurance to women and women’s groups; and (4) building the capacity of the Compagnie Nationale d’Assurance Agricole du Sénégal (CNAAS, Senegal’s national agricultural insurance company) and national financial institutions to develop and provide products and services tailored to the specific needs of women. The project is being delivered by SOCODEVI with the help of two local partners, the CNAAS and the Organisation de Formation et d’Appui au Développement (OFAD/Nafoore). The indirect beneficiaries are estimated at approximately 900,000 people making up the population of all the households to which the direct beneficiaries belong, who represent 7,000 women members of 150 agricultural groups (GFVA) in the rural regions of Casamance.

The expected outcomes of this project include : (1) women farmers are more economically resilient; (2) grassroots cooperatives and groups are better at reducing barriers to women’s economic empowerment in the context of climate change; and (3) the Compagnie Nationale d’Assurance Agricole du Sénégal (CNAAS) and targeted national financial institutions are better at providing services tailored to the needs of women.

Results achieved as of March 2025 include: (1) built capacity for 7,850 women, including 385 women leaders who are members of agricultural cooperatives, in financial education and on various topics. This includes the participation of men and women in the household, collaborative decision-making, gender-based violence, leadership training, and positive masculinity; (2) trained members of 24 cooperatives and 19 financial institutions on promoting climate-smart agriculture technical pathways; (3) created an illustrated guide to lowland rice farming techniques, videos in several local languages, and posters to raise awareness of four environmental measures: agroforestry practices, compliance with product dosages and persistence in agriculture, the combination of organic and mineral fertilizers, and slash-and-burn farming; (4) the National Agricultural Insurance Company of Senegal (CNAAS) applied positive discrimination in favour of women on agricultural insurance products, with a 20% reduction on premiums for agricultural products and 10% on livestock products. However, despite the project's communication efforts, the CNAAS's customer portfolio declined by 27% due to several exogenous reasons, falling from 844,497 customers in 2023 to 613,147 in 2024; (5) 83,888 producers, 34.8% of whom are women, joined as CNAAS insured customers. Compared to the end-of-project target of 100,000 insured persons, CNAAS achieved 83.9% of its target and 81% of its target of 36,000 insured women; and (6) granted CFAF 257,815,000 (approximately CAD 615,000) in loans to women covered by agricultural insurance in the targeted areas of the south and center.