Mozambique: Government launches tender to select company to provide natural disaster insurance

Getty images

The Mozambican government has just announced that it will launch, later this month, a public tender seeking an insurance company to provide financial protection against the costs of natural disasters in the country.

Making the announcement, Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, Amílcar Tivane, said that the tender would comply with national Procurement Law, and encouraged all companies in the sector to participate in the initiative.

Speaking during a seminar on the launch of sovereign insurance in Maputo, Tivane explained that the government would, in the first instance, seek insurance against tropical cyclones and rainfall for the next three rainy seasons, financed by the World Bank.

“Sovereign disaster insurance is a pioneering initiative in the country, and is the result of studies by specialists, who advise embarking on this mechanism of financial protection against disasters,” he explained.

The seminar formed part of actions the government has been developing with a view to laying out the fundamental premises for the establishment of sovereign insurance for Mozambique.

Due to its geographical location, Mozambique is vulnerable to, and cyclically affected by, extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones. World statistics on natural disasters show that Mozambique has a high level of risk.

Between 1982 and 2022, 25 tropical cyclones of varying intensity hit the country, 11 of them Category Three, with winds ranging between 134 km/h and 184 km/h, such as tropical cyclones Gombe (2022), Dineo (2017) and Funso (2012). In the same period, Category Four cyclones (187 km/h-241 km/h winds) hit Mozambique, namely Kenneth, Jokwe, Eline and intense Tropical Cyclone Idai , one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere.

Source: Diario economico