Country: Morocco

Worldwide, women’s access to finance is disproportionately low. Despite substantial overall progress—in 2017, the World Bank reported, 1.2 billion more people had bank accounts than in 2011—there is still a 9% gap between women’s and men’s access. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 37% of women have a bank account, compared with 48% of men, a gap that has only widened over the past several years.

Africa’s gender gap in access to finance can have a dramatic impact on social and economic progress. Women today dominate African agriculture, the continent’s most important sector. When women farmers lack access to financial services, their ability to invest in modern technologies to raise their productivity is limited. They cannot diversify their farms. They cannot grow high-value crops and invest in assets such as livestock. And they cannot invest in better nutrition for their children.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where more women than men become entrepreneurs. But when it comes to tal, the situation looks less rosy. There is an estimated USD 42 billion financing gap for women in Africa today[1]. As a result, many female-owned businesses do not actualize their potential; and many investors miss profitable investment opportunities.

On average, women in Africa own fewer assets than men, often due to discriminations encoded in property laws, and so they lack the collateral necessary to secure larger loans. And women are sometimes required to present more significant collateral for the same size loan, further inhibiting their access to capital.

Inclusive Finance

Each year, the world comes together for International Women’s Day to renew the push for gender equality. At FSD Africa, we’re working to make equality a reality in Africa by breaking the economic bias against women, through the power of inclusive finance.

Two strategies are spearheading our mission: gender bonds and gender-lens investing. Both have the potential to make a real impact, by helping to fund women-led businesses and elevating the role of women in the economies of Africa.

Gender bonds

Gender bonds are an asset class with a specific purpose: to support gender equity and the empowerment of women.

They do this by creating proceeds that are used exclusively to finance women-owned and women-led businesses.

Although 89% of women in sub-Saharan Africa are in the informal sector, their businesses historically struggle to access finance. These businesses were severely impacted by the Covid pandemic.

Gender bonds are a way of addressing this inequality, and with our projects at the forefront, they’re breaking new ground in Africa.

Our projects in Morocco and Tanzania

FSD Africa began by working with UN Women to analyse the global market for gender bonds and assess how corporate gender bonds in sub-Saharan Africa could help to empower women.

Following this research, we partnered with Morocco’s capital market regulator to publish guidelines on issuing gender bonds – the first development of its kind in North Africa.

Later that year, we supported the issuance of North Africa’s first gender bond: the Banque Centrale Populaire Gender Bond in Morocco.  Approximately USD 21 million was raised by way of private placement.

We also helped to develop the Jasiri Gender Bond Framework in Tanzania and provided support for the second party opinion.  This led, in February 2022, to the issuance of NMB Bank’s Jasiri Bond: the first gender bond in East Africa.  The offer closes on 21^st March 2022 and NMB aims to raise approximately USD 17.2 Million.

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Gender-lens investing

Gender-lens investing is a term for investment strategies that are built around empowering women – while also aiming to generate return for investors.

Our investment arm, FSD Africa Investments, is focusing on gender-lens investing as a way of supporting our work towards equality.

They’re doing this in three ways: by applying a gender lens across their investments; by boosting gender diversity within FSD Africa Investments itself; and, by providing capital to existing investments that promote the role of women.

Bridging the financing gap

One route through which we aim to provide gender-lens capital is by directly investing in funds.

We will soon be announcing a partnership with a financing facility to support the growth of small, women-led businesses by providing funds and capacity-building to local capital providers. These providers, rooted in the local market, are best placed to serve the needs of small and growing businesses.

Creating real impact for women

We’re closely monitoring the impact of our gender bonds and gender-lens investing programmes as they progress. This will help us to grow and evolve our approach, to make sure we achieve real impact for women across Africa.

As we move forward, we’re more committed than ever to breaking the bias and making gender equality a reality.

To find out more about our work, get in touch: mary@fsdafrica.org

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[1] AfDB

Needed but not prioritised, relied upon but not trusted – these are just some of the perceptions that have characterised interactions with the insurance sector. The sector has been grappling with the challenge of delivering relevant products for a long time, especially to customers at the base of the economic pyramid.

Only 3% of Africa’s GDP is driven by insurance, which is less than half the world average of 7%. Yet, insurance provides a safety net from many external threats like natural disasters, health threats and economic disruptions.

This brings the question: why is there such a discrepancy, especially given Africa is no less exposed to many of the risks that insurance buffers against compared to the rest of the world? Remote locations, lower education levels and a lack of trust or experience with formal institutions have been key contributors to low insurance uptake in Africa.

According to McKinsey, Africa’s insurance industry is valued at about $68 billion in Gross Written Premium (GWP) whichbehind other emerging markets such as Latin America and the Caribbean. Uptake across the continent is also inconsistent with 91% of premiums concentrated in just ten countries; South Africa has the largest and most established insurance market and accounts for 70% of Africa’s premiums.

In Kenya, a 2019 report by the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) showed that insurance penetration dropped from 3.44% to 2.34% over the last 9 years, an indication that the sector has not been successful at capturing the opportunities presented by the expanding economy.

These statistics clearly depict the protection gap that has left households and businesses vulnerable to shocks triggered by various risks.

Covid-19 has and is still placing significant pressure on the way the insurance business is conducted. The pandemic disrupted providers’ engagement with both regulators and consumers. A study by FSD Africa conducted in 2020 that took stock of the effect of COVID-19 across sub-Saharan Africa, showed that the sector ed to enhance digitalisation as the virus reduced mobility and social interaction amidst government-imposed restrictions. Digitising the sector would also improve access and efficiency of insurance products and services. Furthermore, the study showed that regulators also needed to adjust their service delivery processes of licensing, registration, data collection and product approvals by embracing new solutions.

The pandemic has without a doubt amplified the need to adopt regulatory technology (regtech) and supervisory technology (suptech) in enhancing the efficiency of reporting and supervision processes. There have been notable uptake in online distribution of products, customer-centric services such as the use of chatbots, mapping out trends, assessing risks, managing claims and even marketing. Bold start-up companies are behind some of these most ingenious innovations, with support from the sector’s long-standing players. For example, Lami, in partnership with more than 25 Kenyan underwriters, released its flagship mobile application in early 2020, enabling Kenyans to pay for insurance in instalments and pause coverage if they travel abroad. In addition, Bluewave and APA insurance recently launched an affordable digitally distributed health cover for low-income populations, costing less than USD 2 each month for a hospitalisation cash benefit and funeral expenses benefit of up to USD 500.

To leverage such innovations, Kenya’s Insurance Regulatory Authority, together with its partners, launched BimaLab, a pilot accelerator programme in 2020. The move is meant to enhance visibility and push for resources for talented insurtech founders of early to mid-stage start-ups. The programme will harness innovation for inclusion and enhanced access to insurance products and services with an aim of increasing insurance penetration in Kenya. The programme, now in its second phase and with FSD Africa’s involvement, has seen an increasing contribution of technology to insurance inclusivity through companies such as AiC Chamasure and Sprout.

AiCare is enabling motor insurers to conduct accurate motor insurance risk assessments. This is improving underwriting efficiency and reducing costs of insurance premiums. Chamasure has created a peer-to-peer microinsurance and savings platform which enables those who save through informal social groups to purchase insurance through the groups in case of death or accidents. Sprout Insure developed a faster claim processing solution for crop insurance making it easier for farmers to buy policies and receive timely pay-outs.

It is vital for regulators to balance the need to facilitate and promote innovation with the protection of consumers and the adequate management of the risks that may arise. In this regard, there are seven regulators across sub-Saharan Africa that are also shadowing the second phase of BimaLab programme with an aim of building an enabling regulatory environment. The programme will enable insurance regulators from Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya to adapt and evolve their supervisory processes to be more flexible and responsive to new innovations, technologies, and risks as and when they arise.

As technology advances in the insurance sector, it is important that regulators balance the need to promote innovation with the protection of consumers and the adequate management of the risks that may arise. In this regard, there are seven regulators across sub-Saharan Africa that are also shadowing the second phase of the BimaLab programme with the aim of building a regulatory environment that facilitates and welcomes innovation. The programme will enable insurance regulators from Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Kenya to adapt and evolve their supervisory processes to be more flexible and responsive to new innovations, technologies, and risks.

Insurtech is revolutionising an almost century-old insurance industry in Kenya, leading to its financial system becoming more accessible to low-income populations. With the trend being recorded across the globe, technology is reshaping the competitive landscape, challenging traditional structures to significantly improving access to insurance.

FSD Africa recognises the role Insurtech plays in increasing insurance penetration and coverage. Thus, we are exploring a pipeline of Digital innovation projects to support this Insurtech revolution and the reshaping of the African Insurance Industry.

Africa badly needs long-term finance. But to properly develop, long-term finance markets need data and in-depth data analysis. For years, this sort of market intelligence barely existed. But the work of the Africa Long-Term Finance Initiative gives hope that things are changing.

Why is long-term finance important?

The simple answer: sustainable growth. Longer-term investments support growth and development by reducing costs. That increases productivity and competitiveness and creates jobs – particularly for the 12 million young Africans joining the workforce every year.

But there are significant long-term finance gaps across African economies, especially in the infrastructure, housing and enterprise sectors. These industries are crucial to the continent’s economic recovery from Covid, but businesses in these sectors often find they’re asked to repay loans before the investment has had a chance to yield a return.

Long-term finance is also necessary to accelerate Africa’s green transition, asies and governments seek to reconcile economic development with climate change mitigation and adaptation.

How can data help?

One of the main reasons for the dearth of long-term finance in Africa is a lack of investor confidence. Investors feel exposed to liquidity and interest rate risks, and thus lack the appetite to provide anything more than short-term money.

This is largely due to a lack of market intelligence. Historically, there have been few – if any – benchmarks or indicators to go on when it comes to the performance of long-term finance in Africa. Without this knowledge, investors are reluctant to provide the necessary finance, for the necessary length of time for many businesses and projects to grow.

The deepening of domestic financial markets, with increased provision of financial products and services for all levels of society, is crucial to increase the availability of finance and deploy it more efficiently, and also to reduce exposure to foreign exchange risk – and this process es accurate data, too.

What is the Africa Long-Term Finance Initiative?

In 2017, a number of institutions, including FSD Africa, came together to fix this lack of market intelligence by launching the Africa Long-Term Finance Initiative.

The initiative’s objective is to close the financing gaps in the infrastructure, housing and SME sectors. The ways it does this is by improving market intelligence through collecting data, operating a country-comparison LTF Scoreboard, summarizing the data in regular reports on key findings, and providing in-depth country diagnostics

These products enhance transparency and provide benchmarks to assess the comparative levels of long-term finance markets across the continent. The Africa Long-term Finance Initiative Scoreboard presents data using different benchmarking techniques, providing a more detailed picture than a simple comparison of country averages. The country diagnostics provide additional country-specific quantitative and qualitative analysis, complementing the data presented in the Scoreboard.

In turn, these outputs are helpful to inform policymakers, the private sector and donors about the availability of long-term finance, boosting investor knowledge and confidence – and thereby catalysing new partnerships that strengthen focus on what’s needed to increase the availability of long-term finance.

In addition, by enabling comparison between countries, the LTF scoreboard is creating positive competition among national stakeholders, and further driving the availability of long-term finance.

The green finance opportunity

Long-term finance is closely linked to the green transition in Africa. Countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa have taken the leadcreating programmes for green bonds, which tap into domestic and international capital markets to finance green projects.

The success of these initiatives and the increasing global demand for green investments have led other countries – like Ghana – to follow suit in considering green instruments as a way of attracting long-term finance.

Driving recovery through data

The economic impact of Covid-19 means it’s more urgent than ever to respond to the investment needs of African businesses. The progress made on market intelligence by the Africa Long-Term Finance Initiative is therefore particularly timely. By equipping and emboldening investors, it’s hoped that the initiative’s work will be the first building block in the development of a strong long-term finance market to power sustainable growth

Climate change is increasing extreme weather events, and Africa is greatly exposed. Drought, flooding, extreme heat and tropical cyclones are all major risks with the consequence that 30 of the world’s 40 most climate-vulnerable countries are in sub-Saharan Africa¹. Given Africa’s high dependence on its natural resources, with agriculture contributing 16% of the continent’s GDP and employing roughly 60% of the population, these climate extremes pose a very high risk in the continents’ economies and household livelihoods. In Kenya, for example, in the three drought years in 2009, 2010 and 2011, the drought cost the country 11%, 7% and 9% of its entire GDP.

At the same time, only 3% of global climate finance² finds its way to Africa to drive mitigation and adaptation. There is also a large protection gap with a very low percentage of African weather-related losses currently being insured. A specific example is Cyclone Idai which in 2019 affected Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Of t0bn losses, only 7% were covered by insurance³. As the frequency and severity of weather events increases, if more is not done to change this situation and increase resilience, then the cost of climate disasters will render sustainable development virtually impossible in Africa.

We thus face a major sustainable development crisis for which urgent action is required. The insurance industry has a vital role to play in responding to help drive both mitigation and adaptation.

Mitigation

Insurers are underwriters and asset managers of long-term capital and, in both capacities, can meaningfully contribute towards reaching net-zero carbon emissions.

As underwriters, insurers play an essential role in facilitating the flow of capital to mitigation projects through providing de-risking solutions to investors. For example, in the geothermal energy sector in East Africa, where capital intensive early-stage development drilling has a low probability/high severity risk profile, investors need risk transfer solutions to make the risk-return profile attractive. To address this barrier, FSD Africa is working on setting up a local underwiring pool that will provide de-risking solutions to enable the crowding-in of private capital to this important renewable energy source.

On the flip side, insurers can leverage their underwriting to reduce capital flows to the fossil fuel industry by making underwriting decisions using an ESG lens and not purely based on short-term commercial factors.

As managers of significant pools of long-term capital, insurers also have a critical role to play in the transition to a net-zero emissions economy through green investing.

The recently convened UN Net-Zero Insurance Alliance demonstrates the growing global momentum towards this.

Adaptation

The insurance industry is expert at managing complex long-term risks, and so when it comes to managing the unavoidable long-term consequences of a warming planet, the industry has much to contribute.

The starting point in managing risk is understanding it and having the right data and models to make informed decisions on how to respond. In simple terms, you need to know the likelihood of a hazard occurring, the direct financial losses it will cause and the indirect impacts (e.g. services disruption) that will result. Catastrophe models have been used for many years by insurers to model these types of impacts and price the risk. By incorporating climate risk modelling into these projections, insurers can help businesses and governments make informed decisions on what resilience initiatives to pursue.

Once risk is understood and evaluated, it needs to be managed. Investing in physical risk reduction measures (e.g. irrigation systems or flood defences) and pre-arranging risk finance are two important management options. The insurance industry is a key player in enabling both. For the necessary private finance to flow to resilient infrastructure, as with mitigation projects, risk transfer solutions underwritten by insurance companies are often required. And when it comes to pre-arranging risk finance, this is obviously the core of what the insurance industry offers. So, insurers making the necessary solutions available to individuals, businesses and governments is vital to ensuring climate resilience.

The way forward

One of the key global initiatives developed explicitly for the insurance industry is UNEP’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI). It focuses on sustainable insurance that reduces risk, develops innovative solutions, improves business performance, and contributes to environmental, social, and social-economic sustainability[1].

Given FSD Africa’s increasing focus on the role of finance in climate mitigation and adaptation, we have joined the UN Environment’s PSI initiative and will be directly supporting the implementation of the PSI global programme in Africa. FSD Africa was also a founding signatory to the recent Nairobi Declaration, which commits African insurance organisations to play the sustainability roles described in this article. We strongly appeal to all African insurance industry leaders is to also sign the Nairobi Declaration.  Let’s work together to leverage the collective financial might of the insurance industry towards a sustainable future.

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<"#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1] UNEP FI: PSI – Principles for Sustainable Insurance – a global sustainability framework and initiative of the UNEP Finance Initiative (2012)

¹ Notre Dame Research
² CPI, 2019
³ Swiss Re Institute,