While global efforts prioritise carbon emission reduction, Africa contends with immediate losses—environmental degradation, food scarcity, and economic instability—challenges that threaten to unravel development and exacerbate poverty. This highlights the need to merge development and climate strategies, ensuring community resilience under these conditions.
Cenfri has been actively involved in shaping the insurance resilience landscape through a variety of projects. This has been possible through collaboration with key stakeholders like UNEP FI, FSDA, NDSI, and AXA. Our body of work includes insurance and inclusion diagnostics, climate risk management convenings and drafting policies and strategies that leverage insurance as a response to climate risks.
We are keen to partner with others in expanding our portfolio of sustainability work and are exploring how to manage the trade-offs between economic opportunity, security and sustainability in Africa.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying containment and mitigation measures have affected and disrupted the operations of industries around the globe. This report explores the impact of COVID-19 on the Rwanda insurance sector Rwanda was the first African country to implement a national lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Lockdown measures included the closure and suspension
The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying restrictions by many governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have forced insurance providers, insurance regulators and consumers to rethink how they interact and maintain operations through this period. At Cenfri, through our RRI programme funded by FSD Africa, we are identifying and tracking the major challenges faced by both
The Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) recently published the report, “Evolving insurance supervisory mandates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – implications for data practices.” The report marks the first part of a project by the A2ii and Cenfri, in partnership with FSD Africa and together with a Steering Group comprising supervisors from seven jurisdictions: Ghana,
COVID-19 containment and mitigation measures in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have restricted the movement of people, goods and services. This has affected insurers’ operations, which, to a large extent, have traditionally required physical engagement. It is also affecting insurers’ ability to launch new products, conclude new sales, collect premiums, service existing
International concern about the impacts of climate change and natural disasters has brought the insurance community together to build resilience and manage risk more effectively. At a time when insurers should be leveraging their risk management skills and not merely selling risk transfer policies, some companies want to reduce their
Though much of the global conversation is, understandably, focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change continues to have devastating effects on communities, businesses and governments around the world. For instance, in 2018 alone, there were 53 climate-related disasters in Africa, which caused economic losses totalling $1.3 billion and insured losses totalling
The rise in climate-related hazards and catastrophic weather increases economic risks for low-income and middle-income countries. While insurance allows for faster recovery from disasters and increases resilience to future disasters, low-income and middle-income countries have large insurance protection gaps. The Insurance Development Forum estimates that USD160 billion of assets are
The micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector is arguably the biggest employer in many economies, particularly in the developing world. It’s also often the biggest source of jobs for marginalised segments such as women, youth and poor communities. But exactly how big is the sector, and how many jobs
Traditionally, actuaries find themselves poring over mortality tables and calculating complicated risks with limited data, particularly in emerging markets. With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, this is changing. The world seems to be revolving around data. Data is making our lives more convenient. We have fridges that order
The housing shortfall in Africa is immense. For instance, the World Bank (2017) estimates that across eight countries in West Africa about 800,000 new housing units are needed every year to address the housing shortages. Yet, banks in these countries collectively only issue 15,000 new mortgages per year. Similar shortages
The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying containment and mitigation measures have affected and disrupted the operations of industries around the globe. This report explores the impact of COVID-19 on the Rwanda insurance sector Rwanda was the first African country to implement a national lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Lockdown measures included the closure and suspension
The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying restrictions by many governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have forced insurance providers, insurance regulators and consumers to rethink how they interact and maintain operations through this period. At Cenfri, through our RRI programme funded by FSD Africa, we are identifying and tracking the major challenges faced by both
The Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) recently published the report, “Evolving insurance supervisory mandates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – implications for data practices.” The report marks the first part of a project by the A2ii and Cenfri, in partnership with FSD Africa and together with a Steering Group comprising supervisors from seven jurisdictions: Ghana,
COVID-19 containment and mitigation measures in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have restricted the movement of people, goods and services. This has affected insurers’ operations, which, to a large extent, have traditionally required physical engagement. It is also affecting insurers’ ability to launch new products, conclude new sales, collect premiums, service existing
International concern about the impacts of climate change and natural disasters has brought the insurance community together to build resilience and manage risk more effectively. At a time when insurers should be leveraging their risk management skills and not merely selling risk transfer policies, some companies want to reduce their
Though much of the global conversation is, understandably, focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change continues to have devastating effects on communities, businesses and governments around the world. For instance, in 2018 alone, there were 53 climate-related disasters in Africa, which caused economic losses totalling $1.3 billion and insured losses totalling
The rise in climate-related hazards and catastrophic weather increases economic risks for low-income and middle-income countries. While insurance allows for faster recovery from disasters and increases resilience to future disasters, low-income and middle-income countries have large insurance protection gaps. The Insurance Development Forum estimates that USD160 billion of assets are
The micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector is arguably the biggest employer in many economies, particularly in the developing world. It’s also often the biggest source of jobs for marginalised segments such as women, youth and poor communities. But exactly how big is the sector, and how many jobs
Traditionally, actuaries find themselves poring over mortality tables and calculating complicated risks with limited data, particularly in emerging markets. With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, this is changing. The world seems to be revolving around data. Data is making our lives more convenient. We have fridges that order
The housing shortfall in Africa is immense. For instance, the World Bank (2017) estimates that across eight countries in West Africa about 800,000 new housing units are needed every year to address the housing shortages. Yet, banks in these countries collectively only issue 15,000 new mortgages per year. Similar shortages
