Pula Advisors, an international insurtech company, in partnership with Oromia Insurance S.C. and other local partners, has provided agricultural insurance coverage to 700,000 smallholder farmers as of December 2024. Building on this success, the company aims to reach an additional 3 million farmers by the end of the current fiscal year. This scale-up effort brings together a consortium of local insurers, including Abay Insurance S.C., Africa Insurance S.C., Ethiopian Insurance Company (EIC), Nyala Insurance S.C., and Oromia Insurance S.C.

The announcement was made on Wednesday by Pula’s Ethiopia Country Director, Dagmawi Haileyesus, during the UNDP’s Financial Resilience in Agriculture (FRA) Community of Practice (CoP) 2025 high-level international forum, held at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) headquarters in Addis Ababa. The event brought together over 100 participants from 24 countries.

Held under the theme “Ethiopia’s Two-Decade Pilot Journey: Voices from Partners Implementing Agriculture Insurance”, the forum spotlighted Ethiopia’s evolving landscape in agricultural insurance, highlighting policy gaps, challenges, and future directions.

Solomon Zegeye, Director at Nyala Insurance, pointed out that premium affordability remains a major barrier, particularly for smallholder farmers. “Only large-scale producers can afford current rates,” he noted, adding that without strong policy intervention to enable premium financing, the scale-up of agricultural insurance will remain limited.

Other pressing issues include low awareness among smallholder farmers about the value of insurance, limited distribution channels in rural and remote areas, and the absence of robust policy frameworks to support the sector’s growth.

Also speaking at the forum, Belay Tulu, Director of the Insurance Supervision Directorate at the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), shared updates on regulatory reforms under way to address structural bottlenecks.

“We’re working on a new insurance proclamation that expands our mandate beyond supervision to include market development,” said Belay. “Inclusive insurance is broader than microinsurance. It targets unserved populations beyond just the poor.”

Belay added that a Microinsurance Directive is being also drafted to allow member-based institutions, such as cooperatives and community-based groups, to facilitate insurance delivery.

A key highlight of the event was the official launch of the Ethiopia Rural Finance Service Unit (RFSU) under the Ministry of Agriculture. The RFSU announced in the presence of Girma Amente (PhD), Minister of Agriculture and the State Minister of Agriculture, Sofia Kassa is set to play a central role in coordinating and scaling agricultural insurance efforts nationwide, with support from UNDP, JICA, and other development partners, through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“The revised Agricultural and Rural Development Policy places strong emphasis on improving access to financial credit for smallholder farmers,” said Dr. Girma. “The government’s focus on the sector has driven inclusive and climate-resilient economic reforms, boosting both production and productivity.”

Pula and its partner insurers are delivering Area Yield Index Insurance (AYII), a comprehensive coverage solution—through the Input Voucher System (IVS). This model links insurance directly to agricultural input purchases, leveraging the existing IVS infrastructure that reaches up to 7 million farmers, in collaboration with the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI).

“Pula has long anticipated the establishment of a platform like the RFSU, recognizing the sector’s need for greater coordination. With the RFSU now in place, we are well-positioned to scale our work nationally—with the potential to serve over 7 million farmers across Ethiopia.” said Dagmawi. He also added “We are confident that the RFSU will leverage key learnings from our program and help create an enabling environment that fosters better outcomes for smallholder farmers through expanded, well-coordinated agricultural insurance efforts.”

Pula operates in 20 countries globally, reaching a total of 20+ million farmers. The company entered Ethiopia in November 2022, following the Ministry of Agriculture’s pledge  to work with stakeholders to deliver climate risk solutions for Ethiopian farmers and its delegation of responsibility to the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI), efforts began to design and pilot a scalable agricultural insurance model.