Altering poverty dynamics with index insurance: northern Kenya’s HSNP+

Abstract not available

Insuring against drought-related livestock mortality: Piloting index-based livestock insurance in northern Kenya

Climate related shocks are among the leading cause of production and efficiency losses in smallholder crop and livestock production in rural Africa. Consequently, the identification of tools to help manage the risks associated with climactic extremities is increasingly considered to be among the key pillars of any agenda to enhance agricultural growth and welfare in rural Africa. This paper describes the application of a promising innovation in insurance design – index-based insurance – that seeks to bring the benefits of formal insurance to help manage the weather-related risks faced by rural crop and livestock producers in low-income countries. In particular, we highlight the research and development agenda of a comprehensive effort to design commercially viable index based livestock insurance aimed at protecting the pastoral populations of northern Kenya from the considerable drought-related livestock mortality risk that they face. Detailing the conditions that make the pastoral economy in northern Kenya an ideal candidate for the provision of indexbased insurance products, the paper describes the contract design, defines its structure, offers analysis that indicates a high likelihood of commercial sustainability among the target market and describes the process of implementation leading up to the launch of a pilot in Marsabit District of northern Kenya in early 2010

Insuring against drought‐related livestock mortality: Piloting index based livestock insurance in northern Kenya

Climate related shocks are among the leading cause of production and efficiency losses in smallholder crop and livestock production in rural Africa. Consequently, the identification of tools to help manage the risks associated with climactic extremities is increasingly considered to be amongst the key pillars of any agenda to enhance agricultural growth and welfare in rural Africa. This paper describes the application of a promising innovation in insurance design – index‐based insurance – that seeks to bring the benefits of formal insurance to help manage the weather‐related risks faced by rural crop and livestock producers in low‐income countries. In particular, we highlight the research and development agenda of a comprehensive effort to design commercially viable index‐based livestock insurance aimed at protecting the pastoral populations of Northern Kenya from the considerable drought‐related livestock mortality risk that they face. Detailing the conditions that make the pastoral economy in Northern Kenya an ideal candidate for the provision of index‐based insurance products, the paper describes the contract design, defines its structure, offers analysis that indicates a high likelihood of commercial sustainability among the target market and describes the process of implementation leading up to the launch of a pilot in Marsabit district of Northern Kenya in early 2010

Nonleptonic Cabibbo Favoured BB-Decays and CPCP-Asymmetries for Charmed Final Hadron States in Isgur and Wise Theory

The Cabibbo allowed non-leptonic $B$-decays in two hadrons are studied, within the factorization hypothesis, in the framework of Isgur and Wise theory for the matrix elements of the $\Delta B=-\Delta C=\pm 1$ weak currents. The $SU(2)_{HF}$ symmetry relates $|\Delta B|=1$ to $|\Delta C|=1$ currents, which have been measured in the semileptonic strange decays of charmed particles. By assuming colour screening and allowing for $SU(3)$ invariant contributions from the annihilation terms with charmed final states one is able to comply with the present experimental knowledge.\\ The $CP$ violating asymmetries in neutral $B$ decays are given for charmed final states in terms of the $K-M$ angles. With the central values found for the annihilation parameters there is a destructive (constructive) interference between the direct and annihilation terms in the Cabibbo allowed (doubly forbidden) amplitudes for the decays into $D^{0}(D^{*0})\pi^0$ and $D^0\rho^0$ so that they may be of the same order. This would imply large asymmetries, for which however our present knowledge on the amplitudes does not allow to predict even their sign.\\ We have better confidence in our predictions for the charged final states than the neutral ones and can draw the conclusion that the detection of the corresponding asymmetries requires, at least, $10^6$ tagged neutral $B$-particles.Comment: CERNTEX, 17 pages, DSF-92/23, INFN-NA-IV-92/2

Forgotten fatalities: British military, mining, and maritime accidents since 1900.

Background Comparative long-term trends in fatal accident rates in the UK’s most hazardous occupations have not been reported. Aims To compare trends in fatal accident rates in six of the most hazardous occupations (the three armed forces, merchant shipping, sea fishing and coal mining) and the general British workforce during peacetime years since 1900. Methods Examinations of annual mortality reports, returns, inquiry files and statistics. The main outcome measure was the fatal accident rate per 100 000 population employed. Results These six occupations accounted for ~40% of all fatal accidents in the British workforce. Fatal accident rates were highest in merchant shipping to 1914 (400–600 per 100 000) and in the Royal Air Force and sea fishing by the early 1920s (around 300 per 100 000). Since the 1950s sea fishing has remained the most hazardous occupation (50–200). Widespread reductions in fatal accident rates for each occupation have been greatest in recent years in the three armed forces and merchant shipping. Compared with the general workforce, relative risks of fatalities have increased in recent decades in all these occupations except shipping. Conclusions All six occupations still have high fatal accident rates. The greatly increased fatalities in sea fishing generally and in the Royal Air Force during its early years reflect, for different reasons, cultures of extreme risk-taking in these two sectors. Reductions in fatality rates in the armed forces over the last 20 years are due largely to decreases in land transport accidents

Wavy Strings: Black or Bright?

Recent developments in string theory have brought forth a considerable interest in time-dependent hair on extended objects. This novel new hair is typically characterized by a wave profile along the horizon and angular momentum quantum numbers $l,m$ in the transverse space. In this work, we present an extensive treatment of such oscillating black objects, focusing on their geometric properties. We first give a theorem of purely geometric nature, stating that such wavy hair cannot be detected by any scalar invariant built out of the curvature and/or matter fields. However, we show that the tidal forces detected by an infalling observer diverge at the `horizon' of a black string superposed with a vibration in any mode with $l \ge 1$. The same argument applied to longitudinal ($l=0$) waves detects only finite tidal forces. We also provide an example with a manifestly smooth metric, proving that at least a certain class of these longitudinal waves have regular horizons.Comment: 45 pages, latex, no figure