Gestion intégrée des catastrophes en Afrique Subsaharienne : rôle de l’assurance, pour un système de gestion performant et la résilience des populations au Bénin

Variabilities and climate changes and the inabilities to cope with their risks, effects and, more specifically, to manage the accompanying hydro meteorological disasters (flood and drought), add to the vulnerabilities and problems that are already a big concern in Sub-Saharan Africa and Benin. In the face of their increasingly recurrent manifestations – the weakness of local funding systems for disaster management and the lack of social protection systems, which reflect the limitations of disaster risk transfer capacities – this study identified the structure (governance and resources) as the essential issue for disaster management in Benin. A synthetic study, multiple case study with three levels of interlinked analysis, in a qualitative approach, provided a better understanding of how, in a poverty context, the integration of climate micro-insurance, changes the structure, process and outcome of disaster management and ensures system performance and population resilience. It documented different aspects of the structure and vulnerabilities of systems and populations and identified the lack of integration of climate micro-insurance into disaster management systems as a problem at the heart of the complexity of the determinants of resilience. This approach faces another complexity: the diversity of interconnections between different risk categories, which places health at the heart of all risks. The need for holistic global risk management, or all-hazards management, as adopted by the Hyogo and the Sendai Frameworks for Action; and the importance of responding in accordance with the context and its risk profile, which takes the option of "democratizing" a climate micro-insurance system governed on the basis of ideological foundations of equity and efficiency, this research recommended - for a more rational, relevant, effective and efficient disaster management - an integration of three systems: the disaster management system; the social protection system, including micro climate insurance, and the health system, all of which are recognized as being well equipped for risks management. It noted that such an approach would also ensure effective management of the change that would result from the integration of climate micro-insurance into disaster management; as well as better use of tools and methods for awareness raising, preventing, predicting and assessing the risks and damages inherent to climate micro-insurance practices. It noted that the success of the iv integration of the MAC and its development are essentially more determined by actors and their interests than by financial resources, even if they are also essential. This research recommends that, based on well-studied models and modes of integration, its integration or consideration in the various social assistance and social protection programmes implemented in Benin could be, through government subsidies, a means of funds mobilization for its financing and sustainability. This financing could also be based on traditional financing mechanisms for insurance, micro-insurance, climate change and disaster risks reduction in Benin, in Africa and the world. This is why, if in terms of governance, this work supports a restructuring with a fully community-oriented management, in a front-line services approach with service networks; in terms of resources, it has also analysed the conditions and possibilities for the development of micro climate insurance, which depends above all on the quality of disaster management (capacities to reduce risks and limit losses or capacities to induce resilience of systems and populations); this approach will draw on endogenous realities and practices in disaster management and, above all, in social protection or risk transfer, based on good practices; this will contribute to establishing equity, as a principle of integrated disaster management and, beyond resilience, to bringing about a convergence of efforts to empower the structure and populations in the face of catastrophic floods and drought events. This research believes that universal micro insurance for hydro meteorological disaster management must be daring; that it is feasible; it is possible to combine universal microclimate insurance and universal medical insurance, in a dynamic that mobilizes efficient approaches and interests.

Keyphrases: Insurance, Micro insurance, Risk, Disaster management, Resilience, Social protection, Governance, Public health, Sub-Saharan Africa, Benin