Use of Catastrophe Risk Models in Assessing Sovereign Food Security for Risk Transfer

This paper discusses how catastrophe
crop risk models can be used to assess food security needs
at the sovereign level for the purpose of risk transfer. The
rationale for a system to evaluate food security needs at
the national level is discussed. The role of technology and
remote sensing data availability as an enabler of
catastrophe crop risk models is discussed followed by a
description of the framework of catastrophe crop models for
droughts, representing the peril for which catastrophe
models have had the most success. The integration of the
output of catastrophe crop models with a food security
vulnerability assessment model is described next. Recent
advances in analytical modeling of various types of shocks
in assessing food security are described but the operational
use of these analytical models in the development of food
security assessment for risk transfer is seen to be limited
for now because of the complexity of these analytical
models. The food security vulnerability modeling in the
African Risk Capacity, ARC, model is then described as
showing a practical solution to the complex problem of
assessing food security via a model. Lastly, the challenges
faced in risk transfer of sovereign food security risks are discussed.