Queenie Chow TranslatorCher Cheng
:
[ ] Me and West African senior
actuary at beach in Ghana
[ ] Togo
Togo Masks at artisan market
[ ] Lizard outside my apartment
38
(AIO)
(ETI)
61%
Beautiful beach in Togo
[ ] At Conference
[ ]Photo taken
at conference lunch
30
ISSUE 459
18.12.2015
Queenie Chow TranslatorCher Cheng
Dream a little
dream:
"This is Africa" ? !
[ ] Dinner with committee of
the Actuarial Society of Ghana
[ ] Kids on the street at Lome
Lome
After almost 2 full days of travel – I am
finally in Togo!
No doubt it was one of my longest
trips around the globe – flying from
Melbourne to Bangkok, to Nairobi, to Accra
and another 5 hours of car ride to arrive
at my final destination Togo – totalling 38
hours.
I have arrived in the capital of Togo,
Lomé just in time for the excitement of the
annual AIO Life Insurance - Demystifying
Life Insurance. The African Insurance
Organisation (AIO) is a non-governmental
organisation recognised by many African
governments in promoting inter-African cooperation
and development of a healthy
insurance and re-insurance industry. The
conference which had taken place in the
modern prestigious Pan African Centre of
EcoBank (ETI) was unquestionably a highquality
convention.
Without a doubt, this conference gave
me a small glimpse of the big business
world of Africa with insights into the latest
African industry news, product innovation,
market trends, micro-insurance, riskmanagement
and regulations. It gave me
the invaluable opportunities to network and
gain insight from leading industry experts
from all over Africa. Many often have the
misconception that Africa is a country.
But it does not take long for one to realise
during this conference that Africa is in fact
an entire continent marked with an amazing,
unparalleled diversity of languages, peoples
and nations. One may not realise how big
the continent Africa actually is – it covers the
same surface as 13 countries – including
the United States, China and India - and
the whole of Eastern Europe! There are at
least 3,000 distinct ethnic groups in Africa
– here is no continent more blessed with
striking beauty and diversity than the African
Motherland.
I was also given the remarkable
opportunity in the conference in sharing
some of my actuarial insight as an Actuaries
Without Borders member. Interestingly,
the host of the conference made several
explicit comments about the rarity of female
speakers – he was almost shocked to
see female presenters. Unquestionably,
African women continue to face some
grim facts in gender equality. According
to the World Bank, at 61 percent, women
in Sub-Saharan Africa have one of the
highest labour force participation rates in
the world. Yet across Africa women face
an array of barriers to achieving their full
potential, from restrictive cultural practices
to discriminatory laws and highly segmented
labour markets. High respect should be
given to the various African initiatives
which continue to work towards eliminating
gender inequality and empowering women
in boosting the continents development
potential.
It was also fascinating to note on the
second day of the seminar that although
the scheduled seminar started at 8:30 am,
the majority of the participants only leisurely
arrived at 9:30 am to make a start to the
packed schedule of the conference –
African time. According to one Ghanian
writer: The problem of punctuality has
become so endemic that lateness to any
function is accepted and explained off
as 'African time. African time is
the perceived cultural tendency in parts
of Africa toward a more relaxed attitude
to time. Indeed, such cultural tendency is
reflected in the more leisurely, relaxed, and
less rigorously-scheduled lifestyle found
in African countries, in contrast to the
clock-bound pace of daily life in Western
countries. Even when a seminar session
has run over schedule for over half an
hour, participants can still leisurely raise a
question statement of over 15 minutes!
Yet the comfort of the venue and the
excellent catering of such fine conference
has almost disguised the fact of that I am
now in one of the poorest regions of the
world – West Africa. Is this really TIA*?
* TIA - This is Africa is a common
phrase among expatriates here. It is used
to shrug off or laugh off unexplainable
or inconceivable cultural differences
encountered.
31
ISSUE 459
18.12.2015
Change language