Global Parametrics completes financing round with UK gov. support

Global Parametrics (GP), a for-profit, social venture, has secured additional funding for a new initiative which will increase access to disaster protection in developing countries against the impacts of climate change with support from the UK government.

The UK Government, through the Department for International Development (DFID), will provide £7.9 million of support to develop innovative financial solutions by working directly with firms and NGOs. The investment complements GP’s first equity investor, the German Government, via their development finance bank KfW and the Climate Insurance Fund.

The GP initiative aims to help 60 million of the most vulnerable people in developing countries by 2020. GP wants to ensure, for example, that small banks or agricultural cooperatives, who are lending to the poor in the developing world, can continue or even increase their lending in the aftermath of a natural disaster (such as tropical cyclone, drought, earthquake), helping to build resilience for households and communities in the process.

Similar financing solutions are envisioned for the humanitarian sector where climate data can be analysed to forecast extreme drought conditions and trigger payments as early as possible, before the disaster intensifies.

GP will use its own proprietary weather data modelling platform to design indirect insurance solutions for firms and NGOs. In addition, GP will advise clients on risk and financial engineering solutions that can be used to optimise the mitigation, management and transfer of natural disaster risk. Furthermore, GP will have access to risk capital via the Natural Disaster Fund.

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