The road to Egypt: What does Africa need from COP27?

Thu 03 Nov 2022 -
12:30 - 13:30

This is part of an upcoming 4 part webinar series - The road to Egypt: The IFoA’s Sustainability Thought Leadership Series

What does Africa need from COP27?

While climate change is global, Africa is disproportionately vulnerable to its effects. The continent has contributed negligibly to the changing climate, with only around 2–3% of global emissions, yet it stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region in the world, driven by the prevailing low levels of socio-economic growth in the continent.

With COP27 taking place in Egypt this year, this webinar will focus in on what African nations need from the deliberations in November. It will look at some of the specific challenges facing the host continent and how actuaries are responding to them. It will seek to answer questions such as:

Which climate threats are unique to African nations? What are the potential consequences?

What are the latest developments/initiatives aimed at addressing the climate crisis on the continent?

What are actuaries doing on the ground in Africa?

Featured speakers

Rosalind is a Life and GI Actuary with nearly 25 years of professional experience and is currently an EMEA Actuary for the Corporate Actuarial Team in Zurich Insurance. Her broader working background is diverse and covers IFRS 17, Strategic Initiatives, Business Planning, Capital Management, Modelling, and With-profits. Rosalind is a member of the IFoA’s Sustainability Board and the IAALS Board Deputy Chair.

As well as being the Sustainable Investment Conference 2024 Chair and this year's Co-Chair, she has also chaired the 2022 Life Conference Committee, and presented and chaired sessions at previous IFoA and IAA Conferences and events, written feature articles in The Actuary magazine, and authored various IFoA blogs.

Liz has worked for a range of insurance and marine titles, including as contributing editor of the Chartered Insurance Institute Journal; as former news editor of Insurance Day, editor for Maritime Risk International and editor of Commercial Risk Africa.

Among my other work, I have written and edited a variety of website publications and written a number of guidebooks to the Caribbean and Florida.
We founded Africa Ahead in 2019 as a fortnightly newsletter, backed by a website. It has grown to around 4,500 readers and we also have some French content as well as CPD for our subscribers. We hold regular round tables and I moderate at a range of events across the continent.

We are signatories to the Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance and give back to the industry through mentoring young insurance journalists across the continent.

Elias Omondi leads the development and implementation of programmes that work to improve the enabling environment for risk markets in Africa to drive systemic change in the market for insurance and other risk management instruments. Elias has assisted various countries in Asia, Africa, and Caribbean especially insurance and pension supervisors to establish regimes of risk-based supervision. He also supported market innovation, designing, and testing innovative mechanisms of risk management through the formulation of the Regulatory Sandbox and Insurtech Accelerator Platform (BimaLab). He is the Chair of ESG Africa Taskforce and currently serving as Senior Manager - Risk Regulations with FSD Africa.

Lucy is a qualified actuary and has experience in insurtech, regulation, and compliance within the insurance industry. She currently works as an Assistant Actuarial Manager at Jubilee Insurance Company of Kenya where she in charge of pricing, valuation, and supports IFRS17 implementation.

She has previously worked as an Actuarial Officer at the Insurance Regulatory Authority - Kenya and as a Lead Business Analyst at Turnkey Africa, a company that provides software solutions to insurance companies across the African continent.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Actuarial Management from City, University of London, and a BSc Degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Nairobi. She is passionate on ESG and is a founding member of the Taskforce on ESG (ESG Africa), created by The Actuarial Society of Kenya and FSD Africa to drive and support readiness of the financial sector in managing ESG risks and in supporting green finance.