Agricultural index insurance for development

Index insurance is often promoted as a solution to many of the barriers that are thought to limit the supply of formal insurance coverage to smallholder farmers and livestock owners in developing countries. This manuscript summarizes the state of index insurance, paying special attention to the key challenges facing index insurance if it is to become a more effective tool for development. We then offer recommendations to tackle those challenges by strategically investing in a set of public goods and services geared towards addressing key informational gaps and improving the quality of index insurance products around the world

Using copulas for rating weather index insurance contracts

<p>This study develops a methodology for a copula-based weather index insurance design. Because the copula approach is better suited for modeling tail dependence than the standard linear correlation approach, its use may increase the effectiveness of weather insurance contracts designed to provide protection against extreme weather events. In our study, we employ three selected Archimedean copulas to capture the left-tail dependence in the joint distribution of the farm yield and a specific weather index. A hierarchical Bayesian model is applied to obtain consistent estimates of tail dependence using relatively short time series. Our empirical results for 47 large grain-producing farms from Kazakhstan indicate that, given the choice of an appropriate weather index to signal catastrophic events, such as a severe drought, copula-based weather insurance contracts may provide significantly higher risk reductions than regression-based indemnification schemes.</p

Effect of B12 supplementation on renal anemia among hemodialysis patients at El-Najar hospital, Gaza strip

Introduction: Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are predisposed to nutritional deficiencies, resulting in vitamin B12 deficiency with negative hematologic consequences. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the impact of intramuscular B12 on renal anemia among ESRD patients receiving hemodialysis (HD) at El-Najar hospital, Gaza Strip. Patients and Methods: A case-control study conducted, which included 110 healthy controls and 110 HD patients who received B12 on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis over two months. Sociodemographics and current diseases were reported. Serum levels of serum B12, white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and platelet (PLT) were recorded before and after treatment. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS. Results: Baseline serum B12 level was significantly lower in HD patients compared to controls (362.62 ± 166.40 versus 483.36 ± 115.07 ρg/mL, P<0.001), which significantly improved after vitamin B12 treatment (639.08 ± 362.99 ρg/mL, P<0.001). Additionally, mean WBCs, RBCs, Hb, and PLT levels were significantly increased after treatment (P<0.001). Serum B12 level was positively and significantly (P<0.001) correlated with levels of WBC (r = 0.45), RBC (r = 0.43), Hb (r = 0.39) and PLT (r = 0.51), and negatively correlated with MCV (r = -0.46, P<0.001). Conclusion: Administration of vitamin B12 improves serum B12 levels in HD patients, which was associated with increased WBCs, RBCs, Hb, and PLT levels and decreased MCV levels. Treatment by vitamin B12 can improve HD patients’ renal anemia. Future studies with larger sample sizes and prolonged follow-up are advocated