PARM participation in the FARM-D Annual Conference

The Forum for Agriculture Risk Management in Development (FARM-D), a platform supported by the Swiss Government, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and coordinated by the World Bank's Agricultural Risk Management Team, has organised its Annual Conference in Johannesburg from November 4th-6th, 2014. The Forum was a great opportunity for raising PARM visibility among the agricultural risk management community in Africa

The Forum for Agriculture Risk Management in Development (FARM-D), a platform supported by the Swiss Government, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and coordinated by the World Bank’s Agricultural Risk Management Team (ARMT), has organised its Annual Conference in Johannesburg from 4-6 November 2014. The Forum was a great opportunity for raising PARM visibility among the agricultural risk management (ARM) community in Africa.

The FARM-D 2014 Annual Conference on “Managing Agricultural Risks in a Changing Climate in Sub-Saharan Africa”, included interventions and panels/discussions with the participation of international organizations, private sector, national and regional institutions and experts within the ARM and Climate Change community.

FARM-D Session 6 on “Climate Change and Ag‐Risk: Policy Makers’ Nightmare?” discussions with representatives of (from the left): PARM, Senior Programme Manager, Government of Nigeria, COMESA and ECOWAS.

Workshop objectives

Along the seven sessions plus an additional working day focusing on “Policy Workshop on Agricultural Sector Risk Management in Sub-Saharan Africa”, IFAD, PARM Secretariat and NEPAD participated in the discussions, and actively contributed to the development of the following themes:

Session 1 – Climate Change Trends and Implications for Agricultural Risk Management
Session 2 – Climate Change and Weather
Session 3 – Managing the Uncertainty: What Can Be Done?
Session 4 – Climate Change: More Bugs, More Diseases?
Session 5 – Climate Change and Supply Chains: Managing the Chaos
Session 6 – Climate Change and Ag‐Risk: Policy Makers’ Nightmare?
Session 7 – Short–‐Term Risks vs. Long–‐Term Resilience: Options and Challenges

During Session 6 on “Climate Change and Ag‐Risk: Policy Makers’ Nightmare?” and during the additional working day focusing on Policy Workshop on Agricultural Sector Risk Management, PARM Senior Manager, as member of the selected panels, provided additional inputs about the ARM process defending the holistic approach and shared more information about the PARM initiative and process to the audience.

PARM Senior Programme Manager, Jesus Anton, participating in the panel of the Policy Workshop on Agricultural Sector Risk Management in Sub-Saharan Africa hosted by World Bank Group, USAID, the Swiss Government, andt he Dutch Government.

Workshop Outcomes

All along the 3 day Conference, the PARM Team had the chance to present and clarify PARM process to many active ARM players, especially ARMT of the World Bank and engage in fruitful discussions with Government representatives (Mozambique, Kenya), Regional Institutions (ECOWAS), private company managers (Kellogg’s, etc.), Insurance Companies (Munich-Re and Swiss-Re), Knowledge Management officers and ARM technical experts. Potential synergies have been identified starting from possible joint missions in Mozambique and Senegal where the World Bank’s ARMT has already initiated ARM activities.

More information on the outcomes of the Conference and the Policy Forum can be found on The Forum for Agricultural Risk Management in Development (FARMD) website:

Knowledge Management

The Conference and panel discussions raised the need of sharing knowledge in order to improve synergies at global and national level and learn from best practices and lessons learned. Given PARM and FARM-D relevant role as knowledge sharing facilitators, a brief meeting has been organized with FARM-D Team in order to explore possible collaboration and contribution between the two initiatives in terms of knowledge management. It was agreed the importance of a common platform to share knowledge relevant to agricultural risk management in order to improve synergies and address the needs of stakeholders. It was agreed that PARM will have a space into FARM-D Online Platform to share with the already existing community its activities updates and actively contribute to the platform with documentation, studies, sharing of relevant events and webinars.