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International Consultant for Local Insurance Products for Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure Scoping Study in Nepal

City/Country Location Details Nepal

Employment Status

Job Type Consulting

The USAID Karnali Water Activity

Scope of Work (SoW)

Local Insurance Products for Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure Scoping Study

A. BACKGROUND

The USAID Karnali Water Activity in Nepal will create healthy, resilient, and water secure communities at the watershed level through strengthened water and sanitation governance that improves water resource management (including water for more resilient and biodiverse ecosystems), enhance sustainable access to drinking water, improve agriculture water management, and reduce the fecal pathogen burden in the environment from poorly managed non-sewered sanitation through fecal sludge management. The USAID Karnali Water Activity team will methodically integrate water resource management (WRM), watershed biodiversity conservation, and water and sanitation service delivery by mapping and strengthening the roles, connections, and capacities of key actors and stakeholders’ systemwide.

Natural disasters, poorly planned anthropogenic interventions such as haphazardly constructed rural roads, poor operation and mismanagement of schemes are a major obstacle for ensuring long-standing water supply and sanitation (WSS) infrastructure and sustainable services.

In general, risk protection for WSS infrastructure against environmental uncertainties and mismanagement and failed operation is critical and can be mitigated by procuring insurance schemes. However, there has been to date no scoping study to determine the type of WSS infrastructure insurance product that would be useful and attractive for WSS infrastructure owners/ service providers/water user organizations, users and federal/provincial/local governments.

One of the many ways to mitigate such adverse impacts to WSS infrastructure, including multiple use water system (MUS), source protection schemes, and fecal sludge treatment plants (FSTPs), etc. is to insure them. The USAID Karnali Water Activity plans to engage an international expert and national experts with insurance and water supply service technical backgrounds who can study the market for viability of WSS infrastructure insurance products and plans. Simultaneously, the experts will conduct product pricing and actuarial analysis for existing schemes especially for three Provinces - Karnali, Sudurpashchim, and Lumbini - to be presented to and approved by the Insurance board of Nepal (IBN). Further, the USAID Karnali Water Activity plans to gather information on knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) about WSS infrastructure insurance including existing gaps, challenges, and opportunities from water and sanitation users, user’s organization/committees on the demand side and to capture the learning, experiences and recommendations from national/provincial/local level WASH stakeholders and governments.

The international STTA will lead the study, providing direction in developing the study framework, questions, study methodology and approaches, data analysis, and reporting. S/he will also provide supervision and coaching to the national expert/s. The national expert/STTAs will complete the field studies (testing of tools and questionnaire, holding meetings, KIIs, FGDs and observations) under the supervision and guidance of international expert/STTA. National STTAs will submit the data, information and study findings to lead expert/ international STTA for review and finalization.

B. OBJECTIVE

The USAID Karnali Water Activity is planning to develop initial non-life insurance products, plans and recommendations for WSS infrastructure insurance, including product pricing and actuarial analysis, achieved through a scoping study. In this context, the Karnali Water Activity seeks service(s) from qualified international individual and national experts suitably qualified to address this SoW.

C. DETAILED TASKS

● Building on the recommendations of the 2018 USAID PSLA, Asian Development Bank August 2019 (ADB 2019) study entitled “Enabling Environment for Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) in Nepal”, and internal insurance assessments carried out by other USAID projects such as PAHAL, Digital Frontier, and Safaa Paani, the Consultant shall:

o Develop WSSinfrastructure insurance product pricing and actuarial analysis.

o Undertake a scoping study on the local insurance products market for WSS infrastructure including supply and demand side dynamics.

o Identify thepotential insurance companies, currently registered in Nepal, that could provide relevant infrastructure insurance products, based on the scoping exercise outcomes, and

o Collect, analyze, and use information from users, users’ organizations, governments (local, provincial and federal) and other WASH stakeholders/development partners at the national, provincial, and local level in developing evidence based findings/recommendations, and recommendations from the study.

● While conducting the study, the Consultant shall:

o Develop a framework and questionnaire to conduct key informant interviews (KIIs) with potential insurance agencies (e.g. Everest Insurance Company, United Insurance Company, and NLG Insurance company, Ajod Insurance Company, etc.) that provide non-life insurance products and WSS infrastructure-related insurance products to elicit the information described above from the supply side perspective (Deliverable #2)

o Develop a framework and questionnaire to conduct the key informant interviews (KIIs)/ focus group discussions (FGDs) with water users and water user organizations/committees, municipal representatives, municipal WASH unit staff and other national, provincial, and local stakeholders from the demand side perspective (Deliverable #2).

o Develop an inventory of the types of insurance products that address the priority risk areas, and that are currently available in Nepal. For each type or category of insurance product, identify the challenges and benefits of each type. Accordingly, assess the viability of insurance products that could be used for water infrastructure in the communities where USAID Karnali Water Activity operates (including the existing schemes from Surkhet Valley (Karnali Province), Madhuwan ( Lumbini Province), and Lamki (Sudurpashchim Province) so we can compare rural versus urban scenarios (Deliverable #4).

o Consult with different federal and provincial governmental (MoWS, DWSM, Province Ministry of Water, Municipal WASH Units etc.) and non-governmental organizations/stakeholders (USAID projects, FeDWASUN, SuSWA, Helvetas, ADB/Small towns water supply projects, The World Bank, UNDP, Asian Development Bank etc.) who have experience working in non-life insurance to document their experiences, challenges they faced, learnings and interest, and more importantly, to understand the conditions or reservations that they may have to offering or engaging in this type of insurance product. This exercise and study will help USAID Karnali Water Activity to categorize the potential actors for WSS infrastructure insurance and to determine their constraints and opportunities.

o Understand the capacities of local insurance companies, the insurance eligibility requirements, and the premiums the insurance company(s) charge for non-life insurance geographical location wise.

o Model risk (and the availability and utility of data sources required for hazard modelingfor water schemes) and understand other barriers to developing complex insurance products to meet the needs of water and sanitation infrastructure in rural and peri-urban Nepal.

o Explore the scale of interest of insurance providers in terms of minimum and/or maximum number of schemes they would consider, and geographic distribution of the schemes to make their business initiatives viable.

o Understand and present solutions for non-paying/unwilling to pay WSS users/consumers through KIIs in the field with water users or management committees and local governments. For this, gather the information on the perception, attitude, and willingness to pay of Nepali consumers (users, water management committees, local governments etc.) for insurance scheme premiums and analyze them to understand the financial/insurance literacy of target populations and the barriers to uptake of insurance products.

o Conduct consultations with local governments to understand and identify who will be the actual signatory on the insurance policies. As local government is the owner of these constructed schemes/assets, determine how interested the local governments are/what incentives exist to take responsibility for paying the premium to insure multiple systems in their municipality. Provide recommendations as to how the municipality will get paid/reimbursed by the water service providers that are collecting fees for the service so the local government can continue to make insurance payments.

D. MANAGEMENT OVERSIGHT, REPORTING AND TECHNICAL DIRECTION

The Offerors will be work under the overall guidance and advisement of the USAID Karnali Water Activity’s COP and/or DCOP. The Offerors will also work, in general, with the Water Supply Services and Private Sector Development Specialist. The Offerors will also consult the GESI Director and Strategic Communication and Learning Director as required for technical inputs.

The Offerors shall submit the final report detailing the progress of tasks via email to the DCOP/ Water Supply Services and Private Sector Development Specialist, which will be reviewed by the team. The deliverables will be submitted in between the task commencement and final report submission so that they may be reviewed and improved accordingly. Exact due dates for deliverables will be determined once the Offeror has been on-boarded.

All the products and reports prepared under this SOW will be in English and submitted to the DCOP/ Water Supply Services and Private Sector Development Specialist. All products and reports will belong to the USAID’s Karnali Water Activity. The Offeror will not have any right to publish them in full or in part in any form/print material.

E. LEVEL OF EFFORT

The Offerors will implement this scope of work with 25 days level of effort from an international STTA (including work in field and remotely) and 50 days (STTA for insurance expert of 30 days, STTA for Water Supply Services (WSS) expert of 20 days) level of effort from national STTA within a 3 month period of performance. The Offeror will start from early July to submit the final report by September 2023.

F. QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCES

● Master’s degree or higher in finance, economic governance and development, public policy, and other relevant fields for both national and international STTAs for Insurance and Masters degree or higher in Civil engineering, WASH, Water Resource and other relevant fields for National (WSS) STTA.

● At least 10 years of experience for international STTA (insurance), including relevant work in insurance product pricing and actuarial analysis, risk financing, risk transfer mechanisms, insurance/ non-life micro-insurance product design and proven competency in conducting studies, surveys, and analysis. At least 8 years of technical experience for national STTA (WSS), including relevant work in water supply scheme design, construction and monitoring, study and research, climate change, disaster risk and economical/financial analysis.

● Knowledge of WSS (particularly water supply and sanitation infrastructure), climate change, disaster risks, local insurance market and dynamics of insurance companies/agencies, and federal and provincial governance system regarding disaster risk financing and non-life insurance.

● Work experience in this field of insurance with government, development partners, private sector, private insurance companies and preferably in the communities supported by the USAID Karnali Water Activity.

● Cross cultural awareness and ability to work amongst a diverse group of staff, and partners.

● Excellent English proficiency in oral and written communication, including a demonstrated record of accomplishment in technical report writing and ability to communicate technical matters effectively to general audience. Fluency in the Nepali language is required for national STTA.

Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

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