Ten years ago, ZEP-RE Academy began with the belief that Africa’s insurance and reinsurance industry could only grow as fast as the skills of the people entrusted to lead, regulate and serve it.
What started as a focused training initiative has become a continent-facing learning platform trusted by regulators, boards, executives, practitioners and development partners across the industry.
As the ZEP-RE Academy marks its 10th anniversary, its story is one of growth and capability built closest to the markets that need it most.
A decade in motion
When the Academy opened its doors, specialised insurance and reinsurance training was still scarce, fragmented, or simply unavailable locally. Many professionals had to look outside the African continent for the knowledge they needed to serve African markets.
A decade later, the picture looks markedly different. The Academy has moved from programmes that once brought together roughly 20 to 30 trainees at a time to virtual sessions and webinars that can draw more than 500 participants. What began as about 10 workshops a year has expanded to more than 60 workshops and webinars annually. In that time, the Academy has now trained approximately 30,000 professionals from more than 70 countries worldwide.
Behind those numbers are people who are better equipped to underwrite complex risks, manage claims, advise clients, lead institutions, and strengthen insurance markets across the continent.
Tested by crisis, strengthened by it
Covid-19 tested the Academy’s model to its core. Classroom-based learning had been its backbone. Then travel stopped, gatherings paused, and the professional development calendar across the region was disrupted.
The Academy responded by rebuilding its programmes for virtual and digital delivery without compromising their rigour. The shift required new platforms, new facilitation methods and constant troubleshooting across markets with uneven connectivity.
What began as a crisis response evolved into a wider continental classroom. Participants could continue learning across borders, and professional networks continued to grow even when physical movement was restricted. The pandemic did not pause the Academy’s work; instead, it expanded its imagination of what reach could look like.
Closing the gap at the last mile
The Academy’s work has also moved beyond formal industry audiences to reach communities historically excluded from insurance protection. Through the World Bank-funded DRIVE project, implemented in partnership with regional governments, with ZEP-RE as the implementer of Component I, the Academy has tailored financial literacy training on Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) for pastoral communities across the Horn of Africa.
It has also equipped community mobilisers and institutions that deliver this cover with the skills to translate a complex product into something marginalised populations can understand, trust and use. In Zambia, the DEG-funded Grain for Premium project extends a parametric agricultural drought product to farming communities and allows premiums to be paid in grain, a model built around the realities of harvests rather than the rigidity of cash flow.
Across both initiatives, the lesson is clear: beyond boardrooms and classrooms, insurance capability is built where risk is lived.
Credibility built on quality
As the Academy’s reach grew, quality had to remain visible and consistent. Its accreditation by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) in the United Kingdom marked an important point in that journey. It showed that an African-built learning institution could remain grounded in the continent’s market realities while aligning its curriculum, assessment and learning outcomes with recognised international standards. The accreditation strengthened the Academy’s credibility without changing its identity. It reinforced the quality of what the Academy had already been building.
Knowledge that lasts
The Academy’s defining strength is its practical orientation to learning. Training is designed to move from the classroom into the field, using case studies drawn from real regional risk events and onsite risk assessments that place learners outside the training room and into actual operating environments.
A practitioner studying property risk does not merely discuss hazards in theory. They walk factory floors, examine safety systems and assess risk in real-world conditions. The same holds true in marine insurance. Site visits to the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam have helped practitioners understand marine risk across cargo, vessels, logistics and port operations. Similar visits to oil pipelines and factories have grounded underwriting discussions in infrastructure, safety and business interruption risk.
This is learning that endures beyond just obtaining the certificate, transforming the way people perform their jobs.
A widening circle of influence
A decade ago, the Academy’s training largely served technical and operational practitioners. Today, its reach spans the entire insurance ecosystem: regulators shaping policy and market conduct; boards setting strategic direction and risk appetite; C-Suite executives leading institutions through complexity; and frontline practitioners handling underwriting, claims and distribution.
Some of its most important contributions have occurred outside the classroom. In Somalia, the Academy supported the drafting of the country’s Takaful Bill, helping lay the regulatory groundwork for Sharia-compliant insurance in a market still developing formal risk-protection systems. That work demonstrates capacity building at market level: supporting not only the people who deliver insurance, but also the policy conditions that allow new forms of protection to take root.
The next chapter
The Academy’s next decade will unfold in an industry upended and reshaped by climate risk, sustainability demands, digital change and the need for more inclusive products. Its evolving programmes in ESG, sustainable finance, climate risk, takaful and artificial intelligence reflect an institution that is moving with the market it was built to serve.
None of this has been achieved alone. Partnerships with regional and international insurance associations, institutes, colleges, development partners and industry bodies have expanded the Academy’s reach, enriched its programmes and kept African market realities at the centre.
Ten years is long enough to prove the model works and early enough to know that the Academy’s greatest contributions lie ahead. Its first decade has built credibility, reach, partnerships and a growing community of professionals equipped to serve African markets with confidence.
The next decade will be measured by how effectively that foundation translates into stronger institutions, better-designed products, more inclusive markets and a more resilient continent.
-Christine Gitachu-Mungai is the Head of ZEP-RE Academy
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