There has been increased awareness among the various stakeholders on climate and disaster risk financing and insurance three years since the launch of the Multi actor partnership approach (MAP).
Comprising different players and sectors, the initiative has also enhanced coordinated efforts on advocacy around the issue of climate and disaster risk financing and insurance in ensuring that government takes into consideration some of the issues discussed.
One of the MAP elements is conducting frequent quarterly coordination meetings to enable the membership to dialogue on different policies and legislative framework that government is putting in place and discuss the gaps in policy and legislative framework.
Civil society network on climate change (CISONECC) National Coordinator Julius Ng’oma underscored the need to build the knowledge base for institutions which are part and parcel of the MAP concept particularly on resource mobilization and partnerships which he described as important components for the members to understand.
One of the remarkable milestones is that CISONECC has been able to support the Malawi Government to put in place a very robust Disaster risk management Act that also takes into consideration some of the elements that the MAP members have been discussing over the years.
Working together with the Insurance Association of Malawi, the organization has also been able to contribute to the Insurance Act which highlighted several gaps which still needs to be addressed.
“The Insurance Act generally talks about insurance elements that everyone else in this country knows for example, focuses more on car insurance, focuses more on insurance related to housing, and also maybe life assurance and how to retain some of the risks. But then it has not elaborated further on how climate related and weather related insurance can be advanced in the country.
“There are no specific provisions on how climate related insurance can be managed in the country including giving adequate mandate to the Insurance association of Malawi and even insurance companies to be able to take these climate and weather related issues as part of the insurance. So that element needs to come out very clearly and those are the visible gaps that we’ve actually noted” noted Ng’oma
However on a positive note, the Association now takes on government and other players head-on in terms of ensuring that information is given out and engaging them on what roles they can play on the matter.
“We’ve seen the MAP working, the coordination is becoming more and more effective; but then what we want to see is maybe in the next two years is to now amplify that coordination and making sure that we bridge the gaps that are there in terms of the different setups within the arrangement to take on the roles head on.
“Today we’re talking about the issues of resource mobilization and partnerships; we brought in that topic because we understood the fact that even though we have this arrangement, but maybe one or two stakeholders might not understand why we’re coming together, why we have to even act together, why we have to coordinate our activities so that we’re able to amplify our voice as a platform. So we’ll be working on addressing the specific gaps that the MAP coordination arrangement has so that we’re able to put life into it”.
