College, UNDP Sign MOU On Loan Insurance

The Africa College of Insurance and Social Protection (ACISP) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to raise the confidence of financial institutions to issue insured loans to the public.

ACISP Executive Chairman Sosthenes Kewe said the programme of capacity building to be implemented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Impact Insurance in the course of implementation will also take centre stage in the insurance industry.

"The programme further targets training experts who are already in the industry working at the insurance departments of technology companies, NGOs and policymakers," Mr Kewe said.

The imitative 'capacity building programme for inclusive insurance' is targets insurance players who want to design and deliver insurance products to mass markets including reinsurers, insurance companies, brokers, banks, microfinance institutions, mobile network operators.

The six months programme also intends to provide social protection to rural communities and low-income families.

In order to realize the envisioned development of financial sector in Africa, ACISP has built a strong and unique team of experts to offer research and consultancy services using a pool and database of over 50 highly qualified and experienced academic staff and consultants derived from within the country, regional blocs and Europe who works with the college on full and part time basis.

"Specifically, the programme targets directors, business development managers, product developers and actuaries responsible for marketing and innovation," Mr Kewe said.

The programme covers four modules or levels of training that involves training in inclusive insurance and customer-centric product design and customer -centric distribution and partnerships in inclusive insurance.

Level three targets marketing education, claims management and servicing for a positive experience and level four covers building the internal capacity to provide inclusive insurance.

The UNDP Tanzania Resident Representative, Ms Christine Musisi, said the programme aims to more efficient and impactful insurance markets by improving the quality and quantity of insurance through a structured approach to capacity building.

"The key objective is to develop a sustainable model for building insurance capacity in selected countries," said Ms Musisi.

In achieving this objective, she said, UNDP's approach is to partner with insurance training institutes, who will build their capacity to offer internationally recognised inclusive insurance training benchmarked on global experiences, lessons, and best practices.

Association of Tanzania Insurance (ATI) Chairman Khamis Suleiman said the country's insurance vision is to ensure to reach 50 per cent of the adult population by 2030 as per the Financial Sector Development Master plan.

"This calls for capacity building initiatives to strengthen inclusive insurance supply and regulatory sides," said Mr Suleiman.

He said currently only an estimated 5.0million are insured and the target is to register at least 20 million people by 2030.

He said for this vision to be achieved, insurance players must be capacitated to develop and deliver demand-driven solutions for mass Tanzanians.