Publications
2012
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Towards sustainable construction and green jobs in the Gaza Strip
15 May 2012
Sustainable construction provides opportunities to address and alleviate several challenges and needs currently experienced in Gaza, including the increasing housing demand, limited availability of construction materials, insufficient energy and water provision, inadequate sanitation, as well as severe unemployment. The assessment analyses the feasibility, opportunities and challenges relating to sustainable construction in relation to the above mentioned needs and explores ways to promote green jobs.
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Social Finance Working Paper #56: Strategies for unions to provide benefits and financial services to workers
08 May 2012
Experiences in the United States
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #18: Client-value of microinsurance products
01 May 2012
Research Paper #18 investigates the preferences of clients and determinants of demand for microinsurance products with the case study of the Mutual Assistance Fund (MAF), the pioneer microinsurance provider in Vietnam. The results reveal that the current premium offered by MAF seems too low and that is has no significant effect to the preferences of clients over product attributes. It is also found that clients are willing to pay higher premiums in order to receive a higher level of benefit. In addition, the main factors that are significantly affecting product preferences are previous experience with insurance, mathematical ability and attitude towards risk.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #19: Microinsurance decisions
01 May 2012
Research Paper #19 reviews evidence collected from a microinsurance field experiment in rural Ethiopia. The experiment involves collecting data from individuals in order to predict the shape of the demand curve for indexed insurance. The study finds that the relationship between demand for index insurance and wealth levels is none linear and that individuals with intermediate levels of wealth have the highest demand while the richest and the poorest exhibited much lower demand. This observed demand curve is then compared with demand curves that have been generated using different economic theories regarding how people make economic decisions.
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Impact Insurance Working Paper #16: Selling more, selling better: A microinsurance sales force development study
01 May 2012
Selling microinsurance is not easy. Convincing low income clients of the value of insurance is difficult, especially when sellers have no previous insurance experience or have other responsibilities in addition to selling insurance. Adequate training, incentives, and monitoring of the sales force are indispensable for selling microinsurance effectively. Properly trained and motivated sales staff can ensure that clients have positive experience with the sales process and a better understanding of how insurance works, leading to improved demand for insurance amongst low income communities. Cost efficient sales methods can enable microinsurance programmes to reach scale and become viable. This paper provides lessons for microinsurance providers for the four main steps in sales force development: recruit, train, incentivize and monitor.
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Briefing Note #13: Managing microinsurance partnerships
01 April 2012
Good partnerships have been identified as one of the key factors in the success of a microinsurance programme. Insurers often need to form partnerships with organizations that can serve as distribution channels to achieve scale. The number of multi-stakeholder partnerships in microinsurance is also growing, as governments and donors become active players. These partnerships are particularly difficult to manage as partners have distinct (sometimes conflicting) priorities and very different organizational cultures. Briefing Note #13 analyses microinsurance partnerships and identifies key themes based on the experiences of various organizations. It provides a framework with which to analyse both new and existing partnerships, and provides recommendations and strategies to monitor and improve them.
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Impact Insurance Working Paper #15: Managing microinsurance partnerships
01 April 2012
Good partnerships have been identified as one of the key factors in the success of a microinsurance programme. Insurers often need to form partnerships with organizations that can serve as distribution channels to achieve scale. The number of multi-stakeholder partnerships in microinsurance is also growing, as governments and donors become active players. These partnerships are particularly difficult to manage as partners have distinct (sometimes conflicting) priorities and very different organizational cultures. This paper analyses microinsurance partnerships and identifies key themes based on the experiences of various organizations. It provides a framework with which to analyse both new and existing partnerships, and provides recommendations and strategies to monitor and improve them.
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ILO and Cooperatives - COOP NEWS No. 1, 2012 (Newsletter)
29 March 2012
ILO and Cooperatives, Issue No. 1, 2012 This issue provides information on the launch of International Year of Cooperatives 2012, in countries around the world. It also provides information on COOP activities including the roll out of My.COOP - Managing your agricultural cooperative, as well as on-going work in the implementation of ILO's Recommendation 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives particularly in the areas of integrating the teaching of cooperatives in school curricula, promoting gender equality in cooperatives, and research based advocacy on cooperatives. Updates on CoopAFRICA and information on a new projects social enterprise project South Africa and technical input related to youth employment and cooperatives is also included.
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Promoting Green Entrepreneurship. First lessons learned from the Youth Entrepreneurship Facility (YEF) Kenya, 2010 and 2011
28 March 2012
This report presents YEF’s activities in the field of green entrepreneurship promotion in Kenya by outlining key achievements and practical examples from the years 2010 and 2011. The lessons learned from those experiences allow formulating recommendations for future activities.
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The Green Jobs Programme of the ILO
15 March 2012
The 21st century faces two defining challenges: The first is to avert dangerous climate change and a deterioration of natural resources which would seriously jeopardize the quality of life of present and future generations. The second is to deliver social development and decent work for all. Green jobs and the promotion of the green economy have become the key drivers for achieving an economic and social development that is also environmentally sustainable.
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Indonesia: An enabling environment for sustainable enterprises (EESE) assessment and a survey on workers’ perceptions
12 March 2012
Employment Sector - Employment Report No. 16
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The enabling environment for sustainable enterprises in Barbados
12 March 2012
Employment Sector - Employment Report No. 18
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #16: Impact of education on the willingness to pay for and knowledge of health insurance
01 March 2012
Research Paper #16 assesses the impact of educational intervention on knowledge, attitude and willingness-to-pay for health insurance using occupational solidarity. It also explores the views of relevant actors on occupational solidarity-based health insurance. Based on multiple regression analysis and experimental design, the combined results of the experiments indicate that the educational intervention has improved the knowledge and willingness to pay for health insurance among informal sector workers in Bangladesh.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #17: Weather insured savings accounts
01 March 2012
Research Paper #17 uses a laboratory experiment in Gujarat, India to assess consumers' relative valuations of savings versus insurance when planning for risky rainfall. This is done in an attempt to measure potential demand for a new type of financial product that combines savings and rainfall insurance, a Weather Insured Savings Account (WISA). Experiments reveal that many participants prefer pure insurance or pure savings to any mixture of the two, and that this preference is most pronounced among those who are more risk averse. The results suggest that the introduction of a WISA is unlikely to be successful and mixed saving, insurance products require further investigation.
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Annual Report 2011
29 February 2012
The Annual Report 2011 highlights the achievements of the ILO's Impact Insurance Facility over the past year.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #11: Does microinsurance help the poor?
01 February 2012
Research Paper #11 evaluates the Health Care Fund for the Poor (HCFP), a scheme that was initiated in Vietnam in 2003. The paper shows that, participation in the HCFP program reduced the out-of-pocket health care expenditure of poor participants, increased the intensity with which the poor sought health care and regular check-ups in public health facilities. The paper also reveals that the HCFP helped reduce the incidence of catastrophic spending when dealing with adverse health events. The paper addresses the possible selection bias of insurance participation by means of fixed-effects models and an instrument variable method within fixed-effects.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #12: Does microcredit increase child labour in absence of micro insurance?
01 February 2012
Research Paper #12 looks into whether access to microinsurance makes any difference in reducing child labour. The research compares three groups of households: those with no microcredit or microinsurance, those with microcredit but no microinsurance and those households with both microinsurance and microcredit. The study finds that in the case of extremely poor households with health microinsurance and/or life microinsurance in combination with microcredit, microinsurance has a significant effect on reducing child labour. However, it is also found that credit-life insurance has no significant influence. The practical policy consideration stemming from this research is that providing microcredit to extremely poor households is not enough to negate the use of child labour, however microcredit in combination with certain types of microinsurance can have a positive impact on reducing child labour.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #13: Risk preferences and demand for insurance under price uncertainty
01 February 2012
Research Paper #13 analyses the willingness to pay of Côte d'Ivoire cocoa farmers for very affordable insurance and in which extent risk aversion determines demand. The methodology employed is an experimental gambling approach with real pay-offs and a contingent valuation method to measure the farmers willingness to pay for the insurance. The findings reveal a relatively high level of risk aversion among Ivorian cocoa farmers with more than 45 percent of the households exhibiting severe to extreme risk aversion. Considerable interest in minimum price insurance has been found with 66 percent of farmers responding positively to the interest question. It appears that farmers' demand for insurance is affected by a range of independent variables like household size, farming experience, monetary value of livestock, share of cocoa in total income, age of cocoa farm, farm size and social network as coping mechanism. More importantly, the study discovers a highly significant effect of risk aversion on farmers' insurance take-up decisions. In particular, high risk aversion was unexpectedly found to inhibit the demand for insurance. Finally, the analysis reveals that the actual premium farmers would actually be willing to pay to be covered is relatively low in spite of a large percentage of farmers stating their interest in the product.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #14: Is it all about money?
01 February 2012
In Senegal mutual health organizations (MHOs) have been present in the greater region of Thies for years. Despite their efforts and the benefits they bring to low-income population, in some areas, take up rates remain low. The authors of Research Paper #14 ran an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits of health microinsurance and explaining MHOs work, to a randomly selected sample of households in the city of Thies. The effects of the training, and three vouchers offering refunds and additional education were evaluated using a randomized control trial. The authors find that the insurance literacy module had no impact on the demand for health microinsurance, but that their marketing intervention had a significant effect on the take up decisions of households.
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Impact Insurance Research Paper #15: Health worker preferences for community-based health insurance payment mechanisms
01 February 2012
Two important challenges in establishing and sustaining community-based insurance (CBI) schemes are low rates of community member enrollment and high lapse rates. These factors lead to low CBI coverage which in turn results in low levels of revenue for the risk carrier and limited risk-pooling, which leave CBI schemes financially and organizationally vulnerable to unexpected changes in incomes or high disease incidence. In Research Paper #15, an experimental design is used to examine how the relationship between insurance providers and health care facilities - and more specifically payment mechanisms for services delivered by health workers - can influence uptake and renewals. The research discovers that the way health care workers are remunerated by the risk carrier can crucially determine CBI performance and quality of health services as payment mechanisms also influence the way healthcare is delivered. Based on the results from this experiment, a revised CBI payment system based on health workers preferences was introduced in the Nouna district of Burkina Faso in January 2011.