Reflections on the Webinar Insurance and Development: Partnering on Risk, Resilience, and Transformation, an official side event of the Road to Seville

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This webinar was an official side event of the 2025 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development & 4th PrepCom for FFD4 (30 April – 1 May)

Ahead of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development, in Sevilla, Spain, on 30 June – 3 July 2025, how can partners work together to unlock public and private finance towards sustainable development?

The annual 2030 Agenda financing gap is $4.2 trillion. While risk is a recurring theme throughout development discussions, the insurance industry’s distinctive risk management and risk transfer capabilities remain significantly underutilized. The industry is a cornerstone of the global financial system, managing assets of over $40 trillion, paying claims and benefits of up to $5.5 trillion annually, and holding liabilities of $36 trillion for future payouts. 

On April 29 2025, in an official side event of the of the 2025 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development & 4th PrepCom for FFD4 (30 April – 1 May), partners from the private and public sectors came together to discuss solutions from the insurance sector perspective to unlock capital for financing sustainable development.

The event also marked the official launch of two key SDSN projects with the insurance sector:

• The SDSN Position Paper on Insurance and Sustainable Development
• The Massive Open Online Course on Insurance and the SDGs

Sustainable Development and the Insurance Industry

In his opening remarks, Professor Patrick Paul Walsh highlighted the oversight in the draft Outcome document of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development that emphasizes growing risks and the importance of risk management, referencing “risk” 32 times, but only mentions “insurance” six times. This is striking as Walsh highlighted that “no investment can happen without insurance.”

Considering that insurance is seldom mentioned as a key financial instrument alongside banking, lending, debt and investment tools, Professor Walsh, together with Lorcán Hall, Senior Advisor to the SDG Academy, have authored a Position Paper on Insurance and Sustainable Development.

To set the stage for the panel discussion, Lorcán Hall shared an overview of the Position Paper’s findings, which outlined the critical role of the insurance industry in achieving sustainable development. In particular, Hall emphasized that the Paper seeks to understand why the industry’s strengths receive limited attention in UN multilateral development agreements, how to mainstream discussions around risk, resilience, and insurance, and how the public and private sectors can scale the use of insurance solutions in development efforts. 

Hall highlighted that 42 in-depth research interviews were conducted with senior administrators and executives with global roles across the public and private sectors, most of whom are practitioners. The synthesized findings are presented in the Paper as 11 design principles and 18 actionable recommendations for public and private sector audiences. 

Importantly, these proposals do not seek to reinvent the wheel. Insurance solutions are already used for development purposes today. The panel’s four distinguished speakers below shared real world examples to demonstrate this and presented pathways on how these strengths can be leveraged much more to spark and drive transformational innovations across the economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions of sustainable development.

Rethinking Insurance in Development Finance

The discussion centered on exploring how insurance can be leveraged more effectively as a tool for sustainable development. The panel was moderated by Lorcán Hall and involved:

• Ivo Menzinger, Chair Operating Committee, Insurance Development Forum (IDF)
• Dr. Franziska Arnold-Dwyer, Associate Professor of Law, UCL
• Mathieu Dubreuil, Lead Advisor for Disaster Risk Financing & Insurance, UN World Food Programme (WFP)
• Shelly Habecker PhD, Global Life & Health Sustainability Co-Lead, Swiss Re

The multiplicative power of insurance and risk management multi-stakeholder partnerships

Ivo introduced the Insurance Development Forum (IDF), a public-private partnership (PPP) launched in 2015 comprising 110 member organizations, led by the insurance industry, and co-chaired by the World Bank and UNDP. The IDF’s primary objective is to leverage the industry’s capabilities for development efforts, including its analytical and risk bearing  capabilities, its know-how on reducing risks, and its asset base.

Ivo highlighted the role of IDF in impactful PPPs:

• The Tripartite Agreement, a partnership between IDF industry members, UNDP, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), which supports countries by co-designing risk financing solutions, building public sector capacity, and integrating insurance into public policies. Projects include flood risk cover in Lagos, Nigeria, and support for climate-vulnerable farmers in Uzbekistan.
• The Global Risk Modeling Alliance uses open-source technology, develops risk models, and supports capacity-building initiatives to help climate-vulnerable countries assess risks and inform national resilience plans. 
• The Resilience Infrastructure Fund, a partnership with Blackrock, invests in small- to mid-sized sustainable, resilient infrastructure projects in emerging and developing countries.

Although these initiatives are important, Ivo emphasized it is still a drop in the ocean given increasing global risks. As Ivo highlighted “what is not insurable is not investable.” Insurance is crucial for de-risking and unlocking finance but remains undervalued, particularly in developing markets. With this in mind, the IDF has partnered with the Bridgetown Initiative to embed insurance in global finance and development frameworks. 

Transforming and innovating the insurance sector

Franziska highlighted the need for the insurance industry to fully embrace sustainable development. While companies’ sustainability efforts often focus on compliance and reporting, she noted that the insurance industry should see sustainability as a business innovation opportunity to tackle protection gaps and systemic financial risks more effectively. 

The insurance sector often acts post-event, focusing exclusively on financial risk transfer, for example, on providing insurance for natural hazard events or the energy transition. However, if insurers take a more proactive role, they can build resilience and invest in loss prevention efforts through product innovation and collaboration.

As Franziska highlighted “this is not just a philanthropic or exclusively corporate social responsibility endeavor, (…) it makes business sense too.” Insurers, with their data, technology, and risk expertise, can become key players in loss prevention by spreading information, offering incentives and financing initiatives. In turn, this has the potential to create a growing virtuous circle of loss prevention → enhancing insurability → reducing protection gaps → business growth → more loss prevention → greater insurability of more assets in more natural hazard affected regions →  closing further protection gaps → long-term business growth, etc. 

Echoing Ivo’s points, Franziska also highlighted the power of multi-stakeholder partnerships in closing insurance protection gaps. When combining public guarantees with private insurance, coverage can become more affordable and effective. PPPs can share risk and lower cost, helping extend insurance to low-income households and small businesses while delivering broader economic benefits.

Integrating insurance solutions in development toolkits

From the perspective of a humanitarian agency, Mathieu highlighted the importance of insurance being increasingly included in development toolkits to quickly and predictably access finance when climate and humanitarian shocks occur. The World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency, uses pre-arranged financing to act in anticipation, early, and right after a disaster strikes to protect vulnerable populations and complement traditional post-disaster responses.

WFP has been testing and using insurance solutions for 10-15 years at the community and system levels, working alongside social protection systems, where they exist. In 2024, WFP provided insurance coverage worth $360 million to over 6.1 million people. This is positive, but unfortunately it’s also a drop in the ocean.

WFP is supporting the recommendations from the High-Level Panel on Closing the Crisis Protection Gap and aims to increase pre-arranged finance from 3% to 20% by 2030, meaning it intends to have $1 billion in coverage available. However, to achieve this, Mathieu listed what still needs to be done:

• Coordinate financing tools better by developing a Disaster Risk Finance architecture.
• Integrate response plans between agencies and governments, and strengthen preparedness.
• Connect with social protection systems.
• Develop new financing models for the private sector to take a bigger role.
• Establish more transformational collaborations with a multitude of partners.
• Access to more data and evidence that measure the impact on livelihood, on lifesaving, and efficiency gains for the humanitarian sector.

As Mathieu stated “overall, we’re making good progress, but we have a long road ahead and not so much time, especially regarding the climate crisis. Humanitarian needs are exploding, so we need to go fast. But I’m hopeful that we can be creative.” 

The importance of life and health insurance multi-stakeholder partnerships

To conclude the discussion, Shelly noted that while it is common to focus on the insurance industry’s role in climate resilience, sustainable development is broader. Insurance has a huge impact on addressing health-related protection gaps. As she highlighted “The life and health insurance gap is three and a half times larger than the natural catastrophe gap. So while it’s absolutely important to focus on solutions to protect against climate disasters, I don’t want us to forget the enormous needs on the life and health side.” 

Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest (re)insurance companies estimates that the global annual life and health insurance protection gap is $1.35 trillion, which is 3.5 times larger than the natural catastrophe protection gap of $385 billion. So, what can be done?

Shelly shared a life and health related multi-stakeholder partnership in Nigeria that is aiming to reduce this gap in the country. Less than 5% of Nigerians are enrolled in the National Health Insurance scheme. Swiss Re, partnered with Women’s World Banking, Hygeia, and FCMB, to design a health insurance product embedded in small business loans. This initiative now provides 100,000 female entrepreneurs and their families with first-time access to health insurance.

Shelly also spoke about the misconception that financial inclusion is only for developing countries. In Europe, cancer is the leading cause of death, and many public healthcare systems struggle to treat it effectively and on time. Shelly shared an example of how Swiss Re has partnered with insurers in 17 European countries to offer affordable cancer insurance to over 500,000 people. This demonstrates how private insurance can complement public systems by addressing gaps in healthcare and social protection. 

Knowledge spotlight: Insurance and the SDGs

Following the panel discussion, Antony Ireland, Better Insurance Network, and Isabela, SDG Academy and SDSN, announced the launch of the new online course on Insurance and the SDGs. Developed in collaboration with Better Insurance Network, SDSN, and UNITAR, and hosted by the SDG Academy, this course aims to equip stakeholders with the knowledge needed to integrate insurance solutions into development strategies.

It features six modules, expert-led case studies, interactive discussions, and is free to access. The course emphasizes insurance’s role in enabling the SDGs, closing protection gaps, and fostering public-private collaboration. It’s a call to embed insurance in mainstream sustainability thinking and unlock its potential as a driver of innovation and resilience.

Conclusion

The event successfully delivered its purpose: to showcase the impact of the insurance sector tools in unlocking financing for sustainable development.

In the panel, Ivo demonstrated the multiplicative power of insurance and risk management multi-stakeholder partnerships, Franziska emphasised the crucial need for greater investments into risk management efforts, Mathieu illustrated how a humanitarian agency has successfully integrated insurance into its pre-arranged financing strategy, and Shelly spotlighted the frequently overlooked but equally important need for life and health-related insurance multi-stakeholder partnerships. 

This event fostered a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of insurance in the global development agenda and set the stage for stronger partnerships and policies that harness risk management for a more sustainable and resilient future.

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Event Details

Organizers: UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Government of Ireland SDG Champion (UCD), UNITAR

Partners: Better Insurance Network, Insurance Development Forum, UCL, UN World Food Programme

Date: 30 April 2025

Time: 10h – 11h15 (ET) / 16h – 17h15 (CEST)

Venue: Zoom

Description: Despite global commitments, the stark reality is that only 16% of the SDG targets are on track and the annual 2030 Agenda financing gap is $4.2 trillion. While risk is a recurring theme throughout development discussions, the insurance industry’s distinctive risk management and risk transfer capabilities remain significantly underutilized. The industry is a cornerstone of the global financial system, managing assets of over $40 trillion, paying claims and benefits of up to $5.5 trillion annually, and holding liabilities of $36 trillion for future payouts. This webinar will explore how the industry can play a greater role in helping households, businesses, and governments navigate risks, build resilience, and enable transformations from unsustainable to sustainable practices. Leading global experts across the public and private sectors will explore how insurance can drive the transformational innovations required to achieve sustainable development.

CONCEPT

Sustainable development is at risk. Cascading and compounding risks and crises are obscuring our collective vision for a sustainable future, a future where we have successfully transformed our world across the economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions. Unfortunately, despite global commitments, the stark reality is that only 16% of the SDG targets are on track and the annual 2030 Agenda financing gap is $4.2 trillion.

A revitalized international financial architecture is urgently required to unlock public and private finance towards sustainable development. A whole-of-society approach is crucial. However, while the financial instruments of banks and investors are widely recognized as essential levers of change, the insurance industry’s distinctive risk management and risk transfer capabilities remain significantly underrepresented in development agendas and frameworks.

The draft Outcome document of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development emphasizes growing risks and the importance of risk management, referencing “risk” 32 times, yet “insurance” is mentioned only six times. This oversight is striking given that the insurance industry is a cornerstone of the global financial system, managing assets of over $40 trillion, paying claims and benefits of up to $5.5 trillion annually, and holding liabilities of $36 trillion for future payouts.
This event will explore how the insurance industry can play a greater role in helping households, businesses, and governments navigate risks, build resilience, and enable transformations from unsustainable to sustainable practices. Leading global experts across the public and private sectors will explore how insurance can drive the transformational innovations required to achieve sustainable development.

KEY QUESTIONS

This event will convene senior leaders and decision-makers from the public and private sectors to explore how insurance can be leveraged more effectively as a tool for sustainable development. Key questions include:

1. How does the insurance industry help households, businesses, and governments navigate risks, build resilience, and enable transformations from unsustainable to sustainable practices?
2. How are development organizations integrating insurance into their toolkits to quickly and predictably access finance after climate- and humanitarian-related shocks occur, enabling populations to recover and rebuild quicker?
3. How does insurance support people to manage catastrophic health expenses and the death of breadwinners, reducing the likelihood of vulnerable populations falling into extreme poverty?
4. What actions can policymakers, regulators, development organizations, and (re)insurance companies take to scale the use of insurance in development efforts and build societal resilience?

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Launch of the SDSN Position Paper on Insurance and Sustainable Development: This paper will outline the critical role of insurance in risk management, resilience building, and sustainable development, providing actionable recommendations for policymakers and industry leaders.

Launch of the MOOC on Insurance and the SDGs: Developed in collaboration with Better Insurance Network, SDSN, and UNITAR, and hosted by the SDG Academy, this course will equip stakeholders with the knowledge needed to integrate insurance solutions into development strategies.

Recommendations to the next draft outcome document of the 4th Forum on Financing for Development (FFD4).

By bringing together key stakeholders, this event aims to foster a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of insurance in the global development agenda and set the stage for stronger partnerships and policies that harness risk management for a more sustainable and resilient future.

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Proposed agenda

10h – 10h10
Opening Remarks & Keynote

• Paul Walsh, Vice President of Education & Director of the SDG Academy, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)

10h10 – 10h15
Setting the Scene: Sustainable Development and the Insurance Industry

• Lorcán Hall, Senior Advisor, SDG Academy, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
  • SDSN Position Paper on Insurance & Sustainable Development – A roadmap for integrating insurance into global development strategies.
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10h15 – 10h50
Panel Discussion: Rethinking Insurance in Development Finance

Speakers

• Ivo Menzinger, Chair Operating Committee, Insurance Development Forum
• Dr. Franziska Arnold-Dwyer, Associate Professor of Law, UCL
• Mathieu Dubreuil, Lead Programme Advisor for Disaster Risk Financing, Climate and Resilience Service, World Food Programme
• Shelly Habecker PhD, Global Life and Health Sustainability Lead, Swiss Re

Moderator: Lorcán Hall, Senior Advisor, SDG Academy, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)

Format:

• Each panelist provides a short (6-8min) intervention
• Moderated discussion

10h50 – 11h00
Knowledge Spotlight: The role of insurance on advancing the SDGs

• Isabela Carrozza Joia, Program Associate, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
• Antony Ireland, Co-founder, Better Insurance Network

11h00 – 11h10
Q&A

11h10 – 11h15
Closing Remarks: The Way Forward

• Paul Walsh, Vice President of Education & Director of the SDG Academy, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)

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