Britain will buy disaster insurance for poorer nations
2 min read
The UK will foot the disaster insurance bill for some of the world’s poorest nations for the next four years, the Government has announced.
The £30 million deal is designed to protect countries against the costs of floods, hurricanes and other events rather than rely on emergency handouts.
Theresa May will say today that the cash was part of the “future of aid” in which “Britain’s future trading partners” were helped to help themselves.
The initiative risks provoking new controversy over Britain’s aid budget, however, as uninsured flood victims in the UK demand similar help.
The insurance payments were announced as part of a £200 million spending plan by the Prime Minister at the G20 summit.
A new London Centre for Global Disaster Protection will coordinate insurance payments, yet officials were unable to name any major insurance company willing to participate in the scheme.
The Department for International Development had held “positive initial scoping discussions” with the industry, a Government source told the Times.
Other initiatives include £60 million to help Africa’s banking sector “stand on its own two feet . . . by building a robust and transparent financial sector”, a £61 million payment to help improve Dar es Salaam’s port in Tanzania and other payments for Somalia, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
The Prime Minister is expected to defend the scheme by pointing to the economic growth Africa will be capable of, if it has a stable environment.
She will point out that 20 million jobs need to be created in Africa every year until 2035 just to absorb new entrants into the labour force.
“The prime minister will say that if young people remain permanently excluded with jobs and opportunities always out of reach then destabilising migratory patterns will persist — with extremist causes and criminality more likely to thrive,” an official said.
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