Kebebew Assefa
Senior Researcher, Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research
MRR Innovation Lab Principal Investigator
Homepage at the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences
Kebebew Assefa is a senior researcher in plant (teff) breeding and genetics at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and national coordinator of teff research in Ethiopia at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center of EIAR. He has initiated several international and regional partnerships in agricultural research and conducted many research projects with collaborators from Eastern Africa, Europe and the US. He is a recipient of several research awards and fellowships, including the FAO/IAEA Third Group Fellowship Training, research associate at Texas Tech University and National Gold Medal Award for Problem-Solving Research Achievements in teff as the leader of the research team. Kebebew He obtained his Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Crop Insurance Innovations to Build Trust in Financial Services for Agriculture in Ethiopia
MRR Innovation Lab researchers have partnered with the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) in Ethiopia to test innovations that improve the accuracy and responsiveness of index insurance, including crop simulations that incorporate farmers’ management practices and a picture-based insurance that contributes to fail-safe audits.
Building Trust in Index Insurance with Picture-based Crop Audits in Ethiopia
In a new feasibility study, MRR Innovation Lab researchers are testing whether smartphone pictures of crops before and after damage can help implement fail-safe audits in Ethiopia. This picture-based insurance (PBI) audit may dramatically improve contract responsiveness while keeping costs low.