Created in 2013 following the G20 discussions on agricultural growth and food security, it provides technical support to governments of Least Developed Countries and Lower Middle-Income Countries for the integration of ARM into policies, institutional capacities and investments in order to move away from a culture of coping with disasters towards smart gender sensitive risk management, building resilience in the agricultural sector.

The platform represents a unique and strategic global multi-stakeholder partnership in the area of Agricultural Risk Management guided and supported by the European Commission (EC), the French Development Agency (AFD), the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Development Bank – KFW (through NEPAD and African Union – UA).

It also benefits from the technical assistance of a pool of international and regional multilateral partners such as the World Bank Group, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), African Risk Capacity (ARC); knowledge Partners (Agrinatura, International Food Policy Research Institute – IFPRI, etc.); farmers organizations (ROPPA, EAFF) and private sector (CARGILL, MUNICH RE) among others.

The Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM) focuses on making risk management an integral part of policy planning and implementation in the agricultural sector in developing countries, with a gender lens.

Background

For the past years, many international institutions and organizations have placed considerable importance on Agricultural Risk Management (ARM): they stressed the need for a supportive facility that fosters the exchange of knowledge and experience to assist the public and the private sector in developing countries to build a more structured knowledge-based approach towards agricultural risk management.

The discussions at the G8 and G20 Summits of 2010, 2011 and 2012 created a positive momentum around agricultural risk management and it led to the decision to establish a Platform on Agricultural Risk Management (PARM).

By December 2013, PARM was set up and mandated to support the development of holistic approaches to agricultural risk management and to facilitate knowledge exchange in the field.

Since the 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and then the most recent war in Ukraine, added an entirely new layer of risks to farmers and governments across the world. Both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine showed that poor smallholder farmers in Africa face the greatest risks: production and yield risks, food insecurity, price and market risks, financial risks, political risks, and human or personal risks.

In this framework, PARM continues to deliver its demand-driven services to assist governments in managing agricultural sector risks and turn the most significant risks of our time into an opportunity to reshape the way risks are managed.

PARM process

PARM process is done in phases, with phase one (PARM Horizon 1) spanning over 2013-2019. The objective of this phase was to mainstream ARM at global level and enable the integration of a holistic agricultural risk management into the policy planning and investment plans in 8 African countries from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The very positive results achieved by PARM during the first phase brought to the development of PARM Horizon 2 (2019-2025). During Horizon 2, PARM is continuing to bring evidence and build capacities on ARM at global and country level, investing more resources in the design of ARM programmes for investments, with a more structured involvement of public-private partnerships and in direct support to meso-level players (extension services, financial intermediaries, women’s and youth’s groups, NGOs, farmers’ enterprises and other organizations).

Goal and Objectives

PARM has the global mandate to contribute to sustainable agricultural growth, boost rural investment, reduce food insecurity, and improve resilience to climate and market shocks of poor rural households through a better management of risks.
The Platform plays the role of a technical provider and knowledge broker with the objectives to:

General objective

The overall objective of PARM is to contribute to sustainable agricultural growth, reduce food insecurity, and improve the livelihoods of rural and poor farming households in developing countries.

Specific objective

The specific objective of PARM is to strengthen agricultural risk management (ARM) in developing countries, in a holistic manner and on a demand-driven basis by supporting partner countries in making ARM institutional component of agricultural policy.