PARM is set up to facilitate access to and exchange of knowledge, as well as its generation, in the domain of agricultural risk management (ARM).

PARM’s mandate is to strengthen agricultural risk management through knowledge sharing and capacity-building activities to improve the human capital of all the stakeholders that can contribute to a better agricultural risk management system, in particular, vulnerable rural households.

In order to achieve the objective of mainstreaming agricultural risk management into policy frameworks, the PARM Secretariat collaborates with different partners to implement the four-phase of PARM process:

• Assessing agricultural risks
• Designing ARM programmes/projects for implementation
• Learning on ARM
• Sharing knowledge and experiences

The pillars of PARM process

Technical clusters

The PARM process is built on technical, capacity development, knowledge management, partnership, and gender-sensitive components. The PARM team renders technical support in the form of risk assessment studies and feasibility studies. The risk assessment studies draw on a holistic methodology to assess risk within the agricultural sector or across a specific value chain context. The holistic approach is particularly important to allow the partner countries to understand and deal with risk in an interconnected manner. With the analytics generated from the risk assessment studies and feasibility studies, PARM provides support to government in the design of projects and programmes on ARM.

As a knowledge broker and facilitator on ARM, PARM has a strong Knowledge Management (KM) component focusing on the generation of relevant knowledge products and dissemination of findings from technical studies. PARM also facilitate learning and experience sharing between and among partners at the county, regional, and global level. It uses Capacity Development (CD) activities to complements KM activities to empower farmers, governments, and stakeholders to manage agricultural risks and develop effective strategies and tools. For each country, capacity development actions are implemented at every phase of the PARM process, in accordance with local needs.

Partnership

Strengthening partnerships with national universities and/or regional research and training centers is important to trickle down ARM knowledge and capacity from the governments to the farmer level at the grassroots. In all its operations, PARM establishes collaborative partnerships with universities, research centers, specialized consulting institutions, donors, government agencies, and private sector entities at country, regional, and global levels to ensure the application of highly specialized technical services and cross capitalization of knowledge on ARM.

Gender

PARM’s technical support to partner countries fosters the integration of gender into ARM approaches to move away from a culture of disproportionate impacts of risks on women to a focus on building resilience and strengthening women’s active role in ARM. PARM consciously examines the commitments, capacities, and efforts partners make towards advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment to identify allies for achieving gender-responsive ARM at each phase and components of the PARM process – risk assessment studies, knowledge activities, capacity development, and partnership building. Where gaps are identified, PARM can offer support to enhance comprehension of gender and suggest routes for strengthening its integration.

PARM holistic approach to ARM

PARM has developed a participatory approach that identifies four phases with the potential of reducing agricultural risks and/or limit consequences of the negative shocks. The phases can be identified as follow:

Managing agricultural risks ultimately translates in better resilience and food security. PARM aims to protect agricultural businesses, farmers, and government from the potential losses incurred to unpredictable events through the holistic ARM approach.