In our discussions and explorations with various people, we keep coming across examples worth emulating and replicating all the time. This one’s truly one worth sharing.
“Our locally managed (at the village level) insurance programme was designed not only to offset economic losses due to livestock depredation, but to also reduce the extent of depredation by providing financial rewards to herders for better anti-predatory herding.”
Imagine - a remote village learned the value of a collective action - insurance, underwriting shared risks and costs for the same, and solved a “conflict” through lowering the severity of the risk for any individual.
This fundamental idea could be reapplied and adapted in many different contexts.
Risk mitigation as a concept is so amazingly understood by the people at that level but most insurance orgs use top down premium to pull this off and loose money and then say that insurance not doable at these layers. Honestly, most never design such interventions participative-ly and hence a win win solution never reached.
These systems are in place in India too, and they are managed as per the local norms. For example, earlier there was no insurance paid to the farmer because the livestock has been carried by the predator. The farmer would be constrained the follow tracks of the predator (quite dangerous) and bring back the remains (if found) to claim the insurance.
It is not so bad now. It is enough for the farmer to report the killing of the livestock, and once endorsed by the panchayat member, the insurance is paid out