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Abstract
Global food security and rural households are increasingly vulnerable to adverse weatherconditions associated to climate change. Informal risk-sharing and self insurance risk mechanisms on which poor households traditionally rely on do not provide complete insurance, while formal insurance suffer from low demand and underinsurance. This dissertation investigate alternative approaches to design efficient insurance contracts. Chapter one explores a novel method to estimate an area yield index insurance based on a Hierarchical Bayes (HB) small area estimator. Chapter two investigate how self-insurance from the adoption of Improved Maize Varieties (IMV) and off-farm income affects risk premiums for smallholder farmers in Uganda. Chapter three investigates the potential for bundling drought tolerant maize varieties (DTMV) with a multi-site rainfall index insurance in Africa. The proposed estimator and bundle is found to be significantly more efficient and provide better risk management tool.