Aiming to compensate flood victims and help them fight natural disasters, the country’s first ever flood insurance scheme was launched Tuesday.
Disaster Management and Relief Minister AH Mahmood Ali formally introduced the flood insurance “product” at a programme at the Brac Centre Inn in the capital, says a UNB report.
Organised by the Oxfam Bangladesh, the programme was titled “Launching Ceremony on Index Based Flood Insurance Product Piloting in Sirajganj, Bangladesh.”
Oxfam Bangladesh has initiated the pilot project to design a commercially pragmatic catastrophic flood insurance scheme for the poor and vulnerable, targeted to sensitise investors, who are working in flood-prone areas.
Poor and vulnerable people in the river basin areas of Sirajganj district come under an index-based flood insurance scheme to enhance the disaster risk reduction programmes in the flood-prone regions.
With a fast pay-out feature for the flood-hit people, the index insurance product will cover 1,661 poor families of 14 villages located in Sirajganj Sadar and Chowhali upzilas of the district on a pilot basis.
The scheme aims to provide cash relief of up to Tk8,000 per household in an event of catastrophic flood. Mobile money transfer will also be introduced soon to transfer the money to the beneficiaries even faster. Earlier, a collaborative design and research study was conducted by Oxfam and India-based Center for Insurance and Risk Management (CIRM), for developing flood insurance scheme in Bangladesh.
A flood hazard model, built by the Institue of Water Modelling (IWM) of Bangladesh will be used to generate flood data while the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) will finance the project.
Initiated by Oxfam, the CIRM Advisory Services (India), IWM, Pragati Insurance Ltd (Bangladesh), Swiss Re, Manab Mukti Sangstha and Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation will jointly implement the project.
Addressing the launching ceremony, AH Mahmood Ali said: “With this very innovative initiative, poor and vulnerable people of Sirajganj district, who are the regular victims of flood, will feel more secured. Such kind of initiative will help the government address disaster risk reduction.”
He urged everyone to scale up this effort to cover whole Bangladesh to help flood victims minimise losses and damages caused by it.
Snehal Soneji, country director for Oxfam in Bangladesh, said Bangladesh is a flood-prone country which is one of primary reasons for widespread poverty, despite the government’s remarkable economic progress, adding Oxfam was then piloting it in Sirajganj, with a hope to spread it across the country with the support of the government, national and international organisations.
Meanwhile, Sardar Shah Newaz, director of Flood Division at IWM, made a power-point presentation, while Rupalee Ruchismita, executive director of CIRM, delivered the keynote paper on an index-based flood insurance product.