Subproject 3: Sub-Saharan Africa
Eva Kocher: Development through insurance – The formation of an insurance industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (World War I to 1980s)
In the framework of the overarching project on the globalization of insurance in non-western contexts, subproject 3 analyzes the formation of a domestic insurance industry in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the process of decolonisation up to the early 1980s.
The dissertation focuses firstly on the policies of international organisations in sub-Saharan Africa in general (United Nations, particularly UNCTAD, as well OAU and AFRASEC) and on two African countries in particular, Nigeria and Cameroon, of which both emerged as significant insurance markets and locations of crucial organisations for African insurance, such as the African Insurance Organisation and CICA). Not only has the history of insurance in sub-Saharan Africa remained a largely uncharted terrain, with the exception of South Africa, but also, insurance took a significant role, not only in the globalization of the third sector but also in post-colonial development and modernization projects, which has been widely ignored so far. On an international level, the United Nations, especially since 1964 in the context of the United Nation Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), offered countries of the Global South a platform for their concerns. In fact, UNCTAD launched an insurance program trying to foster African insurance markets and economic growth by producing policy analyses, helping bilateral negotiations, and offering training programs and advice on regulatory frameworks and international standards, all the while supporting technical co-operation and public-private collaborations. Similarly, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the African Development Bank, supported by Western reinsurers (like Swiss Re), initiated the formation of an African reinsurance network, a process that led to the foundation of Africa Re in 1976, indirectly also the African Insurance Organisation (AIO, established in 1972, regularly holding the African Insurance Conference). Francophone Africa had its own international organisations for insurance, in particular the Conférence international des contrôles d’assurances des États Africains (CICA – today the Conférence Interafricaine des Marchés d’Assurances, CIMA), founded in 1962, and later the sponsor of the School for Insurance Education, founded in 1974.
The dissertation not only aims to unveil the structures of these international programs, policies and collaborations, which fostered insurance markets in Sub-Saharan Africa in the postcolonial era, but also their underlying assumptions and ideologies as well as their actual results: For instance, how did anti-colonial policies, discussions on nationalisation, or the fostering of a native insurance industry transform the insurance markets in sub-Saharan Africa? What effects did the policies of the UNCTAD have, such as for instance its recommendations for an interventionist insurance regulation, its policies against capital outflows and for the adjustment of the balance of payments? How did inter-African initiatives such as Africa Re or CICA shape African insurance markets?
In line with the overarching project’s goals, this project will also attempt to examine institutional and cultural obstacles to the spread of insurance, such as alternative, family- or village-based forms of mutual assistance, different business models for sharing losses and risks, or anti-Western economic policies. The project will also investigate how Western and African insurance companies (such as the state-owned, later privatised National in Nigeria, today NICON, or state-owned Nigeria Re) coped with such obstacles. The dissertation will rely on sources from archives of international organisations, the National Archives of African countries and of related colonial powers, as well as several corporate archives.
Francis Daudi: Development through Insurance: Formation of the Insurance Industry in East Africa, 1920-1990
This project investigates the historical diffusion of modern insurance in East Africa between 1920 and 1990. British insurers played a significant role in the development of insurance business in the region. They opened up their regional offices in Nairobi and agencies in different parts of East Africa, intentionally to cover settler’s investments and their lives. The insurance agencies of East Africa were the most prominent non-bank financial intermediaries between 1920 and 1960s. However, there is scanty research on the activities of British insurers in East Africa. This project seeks to examine agencies of imperial-based company activities in what constitutes today’s Kenya and Tanzania.
The newly independent government in East Africa embarked on economic transformations in the 1960s. In Tanzania, Government nationalised insurance business and other economic sectors in 1967. This was done purposely to ensure the state controls over large surpluses from the insurance industry, which had been taken out of Tanzania. Insurance activities were placed under the state-owned insurance company, the National Insurance Cooperation of Tanzania Limited (NIC). Uniformly Government of Kenya ordered all agencies and brokers of foreign-based insurance companies to be locally incorporated, ostensibly, for the local investors’ benefit. The proposed study- intends to debate state interventions by using localisation and nationalisation of the insurance industry in post-colonial East Africa.
It should be noted that international organisations such as the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) offered training programs and advice on the formation of domestic regulatory frameworks in East Africa. For instance, Kenya’s government requested the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTD) to support the drafting of a law regulating the insurance industry. This project shall dissect the space of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the role of Africa Re as Africa’s Multilateral Initiative on the development of the insurance industry in Kenya and Tanzania during the state’s implementations of privatisation policies in the early 1990s.
The proposed study aims to answer the following questions; how did British insurers expand in East Africa after the First World War? Why localisation and nationalisation as the state’s interventions transformed the insurance industry in East Africa? How has UNCTAD contributed to the formation of regulatory frameworks and insurance policies in Kenya and Tanzania? To what extent African ways of managing risks hindered the expansion of the insurance industry in East Africa?
Regarding sources, the study will rely on Archival documents from the National Archives of Tanzania and the East Africana section of the University of Dar es Salaam’s Library in Dar es Salaam. Also, Kenya National Archives and Africa Re Nairobi. UNCTAD files will be examined at U.N. Archives. Other sources will be collected from corporate archives such as The Aviva archive in Norwich, the United Kingdom and Britam Insurance Office records in Mombasa, Kenya (formerly was an agent to British American Insurance Company). Some government documents will be accessed from the Kenya Insurance Regulatory Authority (KIRA), National Insurance Cooperation LTD (Tanzania), Insurance Regulatory Authority and Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation.