The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

NEPAD objectives

• Eradicate poverty,
• Put African countries, individually and globally, on the path of sustained growth and development,
• Stop the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process; and ensure its total integration in the global economy.

The realization of NEPAD objectives will not happen before one or two generations.

NEPAD «top priorities»

• Establish favourable conditions for sustained development guaranteeing peace, security and good political, economic and industrial leadership,
• Reform economic policies in order to attract more investments in priority sectors (agriculture, human development, construction and infrastructure),
• Promote the diversification in production and export,
• Increase intra-African trade and facilitate access to the markets in developing countries,
• Preserve the environment.

NEPAD operators

¹ BAD: African Bank of Development ² CEA: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa ³ SDAC: Southern African Development Community ⁴ CEEAC: Economic Community of Central African States
Beside the operators in charge with implementing NEPAD projects, there are hierarchical structures whose tasks concern the elaboration and supervision of projects.

The highest authority is the Implementation Committee that consists of 5 initiating Heads of State, and 15 other Heads of State representing the 5 regions of Africa.
A pilot committee assists the committee at the international level.
At the regional level, the orientation and supervision tasks fall under the umbrella of the Heads of State initiating the projects.

The programs to coordinate will in fact be adopted by the competent ministers in each of the regions, with the help of African Bank of Development (BAD).

NEPAD and Insurance

NEPAD, regrouping all the components and all the economic fields, did not leave the African insurance sector indifferent.
For African insurers, this orientation was a logical following to an approach started many years ago, and illustrated by the implementation of structures already operational, such as the Insurance African Organization (IAO) and Africa Re, the African Reinsurance company.

Thus the realization of what the initiating states call “top priorities” will be an easy task for insurers, since the final structures already exist. The question is how to adapt and consolidate them. Thenceforth, NEPAD's stake for African insurers is not simply implementing “superstructures” but creating the conditions for the insurability and reinsurability of great transnational projects, initiated by African states.
The stake requires that African insurers and their respective competent authorities adopt a long-term action that would articulate around concentric circles: at the level of each country, each region and each continent.
The passage from one circle to the other will require the harmonization of the legislation, and/or the operating rules of the insurance, or part of the insurance activity (high technical risks insurance and reinsurance). For, insuring African mega-risks (large transcontinental projects) is not possible without the existence of solid national insurance companies.

At the regional and continental level, this development scheme for the African insurance could lead to the creation of co-insurance and co-reinsurance pools. Achieving wide-scope merger-acquisitions is to be encouraged.

Thus, NEPAD's success reveals financially powerful African insurance companies, technically well-equipped, with qualified human resources, that master technology, cooperate in the regional and continental context, are organized and open to the world.

A vast program that may not be possible before one or two generations, ...