The Financial Resilience in Agriculture (FRA) initiative, led by UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility and funded by the Gates Foundation, aims to strengthen the financial resilience of smallholder farmers against climate change by expanding innovative agricultural insurance systems across five countries. Building on this work, the FRA Community of Practice (CoP) serves as a government-led global platform that brings together policymakers, regulators, central banks, and development partners to promote peer learning and country-driven solutions that integrate agricultural insurance into national financial and development systems.
Following previous gatherings in India (2024) and Ethiopia (2025), China will host the 2026 edition, convening leaders from more than 25 countries across the Global South and North under the World AgriFood Innovation Conference platform, with support from key partners including UNDP China, China Agricultural University, and the African Development Bank. The two-day high-level event will feature policy dialogues, knowledge exchange sessions, and multi-stakeholder engagement with governments, insurers, agri-tech actors, and development partners to strengthen cross-sector collaboration.
The initiative promotes practical, market-driven approaches that embed agricultural insurance as core financial infrastructure rather than standalone pilots, ensuring long-term sustainability and private sector participation. Drawing on China’s experience with the world’s largest agricultural insurance system, the CoP will highlight scalable models for other countries while also launching the UNDP Global Benchmark on Agricultural Insurance, a comparative resource featuring 14 country case studies to support evidence-based policy and programme design.
