The seminar strives to provide a clear picture of the potential and the limitations of index-based weather insurance by presenting a pre-feasibility study for Mali to illustrate steps that must be taken to understand if index-based weather insurance has potential. Mali’s case is particularly troublesome as it raises the concern that carbon depletion in the soils of many African countries may undermine the ability to use index-based weather insurance, the seriousness of this issue for is uncertain, however. The case of Peru is also presented and shows some significant progress in the introduction of an index-based weather insurance that uses sea surface temperature as the proxy for loss created by extreme El Nino events that result in catastrophic flooding in the Northern regions. This product is presented to lenders as a form of business interruption insurance.