Advancing African Risk Capacity in Kenya

- First Version -

African Risk Capacity (ARC) is a specialised agency that follows the vision of: “protect the livelihoods of vulnerable people in Africa against the impact of natural disasters through home-grown, innovative, cost-effective, timely and sustainable solutions.” As a regional, African-owned, and African Union (AU)-led insurance pool, ARC is an essential component of a more comprehensive approach to anticipatory climate risk management. It covers the issues of financial risk management through risk pooling and transfer. Contingency planning is a central part of ARC insurance, and a precondition to purchasing a policy. The specific advantage of an ex-ante mechanism such as this is its fast availability of support; thus, ithelp avert suffering.

This policy paper focuses on the ARC contingency planning process in Kenya and analyses the compatibility of the development, as well as the implementation of related plans, with human rights standards. It thereby applies the human rights-based approach to climate and disaster risk financing (HRBA-CDRF) to assess the degree of compatibility, identify room for improvement, and provide recommendations addressed to the responsible actors. The methodology is based on the HRBA-CDRF with its five principles of non-discrimination and equality, participation and empowerment, transparency, accountability, and do no harm.