burnt maizeDr Katharine Vincent and Ms Tracy Cull, together with the Frankfurt School (UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance), are developing criteria for evaluation of adaptation investment plans that will be submitted by countries participating in a new sovereign climate insurance product. The Extreme Climate Facility (XCF) is being developed by African Risk Capacity to support national level adaptation and disaster risk planning based on a payout trigger that will likely be variation of a 5 year average relative to long-term mean climate conditions. The Climate and Development Knowledge Network have been supporting the project, which has assessed the current state of adaptation planning in seven African countries, including Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia. The purpose has been to develop robust, yet realistic, financial and project management criteria, and sound adaptation principles against which submitted investment plans will be evaluated.