La gestione dei rischi nei Paesi in via di sviluppo: il ruolo del capitale sociale e della microfinanza

Developing countries are characterized by vulnerability: instable, social, economic, political and environmental conditions, expose these countries to several risks. Among them, natural shocks are very significant, since the agricultural activity is often the most important one and it is mainly rain-fed. The population in developing countries has its own strategies to face, adapt to and mitigate exposure to natural risks, based on traditional tools, coming from long experiences, and help received from government and international institutions. Poor families living in rural areas, however, don’t have adequate assets to absorb natural shocks and they risk to fall into poverty trap. So, local social capital is considered a form of insurance against climatic risks, because the networks of relations among families and groups can help to prevent and afford natural shocks. Social capital is defined by relations and interactions among individuals, families, groups, and can assume different forms, can be regulated or informal. Another possible strategy to mitigate risk exposure is access to microfinance, i.e. the financial system alternative and parallel to traditional banking which offers financial services (credit, savings, money transfer) to people usually excluded from the traditional banking system, for lack of the requested features. This research aims to analyze the presence social capital in three rural Ethiopian villages, in terms of relations among families and participation to groups, trust among villagers and group members, and circulation of information. A focus is devoted to the analysis of willingness to buy microinsurance products. Finally, a model analyzing the relation between variation in consumption and social capital is developed, to understand if consumption smoothing can be positively influenced by social capital.