46th OESAI Annual Conference

The insurance sector in Africa is very exposed to economic sectors and corporate clients with high levels of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk. On the supply side, ESG considerations do not form the core of product development or client account management – insurance industry actors often fail to effectively price and communicate catastrophic risk, especially when risks are smaller, country-specific, and rely on high quality data and technically sophisticated modelling. This is particularly true outside of non-life insurance offerings.

During NDSI’s OESAI half day event, we intend to build on the momentum of the AIO 2024 NDSI Roundtable event to scale up the dialogue on sustainable product innovation. While many Roundtable participants are at relative nascent stages of (e.g.) targeting core business operations to meet ESG-positive principles, they are intuitively hyper-aware of their customers’ needs; for climate resilience, for innovative insurance and for challenges associated with reinsurance and risk pooling.

The NDSI event will aim to see insurers sign up to the NDSI and create awareness and conversation around sustainable product innovation. The outcome for the event would lay out a pathway for innovation, challenge identification and structure public-private exchange.

The objectives of this event are aligned with the key messages that we hope participants will take away from the event including:

• Create awareness of the NDSI and welcoming of new signatories
• The session will create awareness of potential sustainable insurance products and current products in the market.
• The session will involve discussions on laying out pathways for product development and innovation, challenge identification and structured public-private exchange.
• To encourage conversations around the underwriting and investment challenges facing local (re-)insurers.