Tunisia to host 2015 AIO confab, as Jean Ntukamazina becomes president

From left: Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Rwanda, Ambassador Claver Gatete; out gone President of African Insurance Organisation (AIO),  Raouf Kotb; President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame; the newly appointed President of the Organisation, Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina; Secretary General of AIO, Ms. Prisca Soares and members of the executive committee of the organisation after the closing ceremony of the Conference in Kigali, Rwanda.

Chuks Udo Okonta

Tunisia will host the 42nd edition of the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) conference billed for May next year.

This was reached at the just concluded 41st conference held in Kigali, Rwanda, where Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina of Rwanda, emerged the new president of the organisation.

Having explored on how to reposition insurance business across the continent, members, reached and issued a communiqué, with nine point resolutions, poised at taking the industry to lofty heights.

In the communiqué, operators were urged to adopt the use of technology in crop insurance by using satellite images with the view to reducing the processes in claims management and settlement.

It was also agreed that to harness the huge potential of its largely untapped informal economic sector and to draw from the success of pivotal efforts of M-PESA in mobile money operation, the African insurance industry should leverage on technology especially telecommunications and the mobile telephony in promoting financial inclusion among rural populace, thereby making its products and services accessible and affordable and breaking the cycle of poverty in the continent,

It called on the industry to partner agencies such as local banks, micro finance institutions, agricultural processors and buyers, non-governmental organisations, government institutions working together and harmonising the efforts with the view to provide the most needed finance to support agricultural development in Africa.

From left: Out gone President of African Insurance Organisation (AIO), Raouf Kotb investing the new President Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina at the event in Kigali, Rwanda,

It appreciated the huge potentials of information technology in insurance market and therefore underscores the need for effective regulation and coordination between the various stakeholders which includes telecommunication, banking and insurance industry regulators.

The communiqué noted that in realisation of the far reaching implications of the adaption of e-insurance and the need to ensure proper insurance, called on African insurance regulators to formulate and articulate appropriate regulatory framework that will set out modalities and guidelines for the operation of e-insurance by the African market.

It applauded the government of Rwanda for its role in deepening insurance penetration through deliberate inclusive developmental policies especially in its economic development poverty reduction strategy.

It however called on the governments across the continent, to create enabling environment for the insurance sector to thrive and assume its rightful place in the country’s economic development, amongst others.