African Risk Capacity (ARC)

African Risk Capacity (ARC) enables participating African governments to insure themselves against natural disasters and respond rapidly when their citizens experience harvest failure. It was established as a Specialized Agency of the African Union (AU) to help member states improve their capacities to better plan, prepare, and respond to extreme weather events, protecting the food security of their vulnerable populations in the process.

ARC is comprised of two entities: the African Risk Capacity Agency and the ARC Insurance Company Limited. Together, they provide ARC Member States with capacity building services and access to state-of-the-art early warning technology, contingency planning, and risk pooling and transfer facilities.

Purpose of support 
Creating enabling environments and building institutional capacity
Information on how to...

Participate in ARC by following steps in the country engagement proccess. Countries must undertake several processes, including customizing the Africa RiskView software, signing a Memorandum of Understanding for in-country capacity building, defining a contingency plan for ARC payouts, and determining risk transfer parameters. When countries have satisfactorily completed this process, they will receive a Certificate of Good Standing from the ARC Agency Governing Board, and will pay a premium to ARC Ltd, after which they will be members of the risk pool. To receive a payout, countries develop Final Implementation Plans that elaborate upon the pre-approved Contingency Plans to facilitate targeted interventions that respond quickly and effectively to the populations impacted by disasters.

Find additional information on the country engagement process here.

Climate objective 
Sectors and themes 
Disaster risk reduction
Type of support provider 
Type of recipient 
Public entity at the national level
Fund size 

30 million per country per season for drought events that occur with a frequency of 1 in 5 years or less.

Co-financing required 
Trustee or administrator 
Specialized Agency of the African Union
Contact information