Browsing: Africa after the Pandemic

The rising commodity prices, surging inflationary pressures, and the contracting global financial situation have risked African trade and production capabilities. Moreover, the rising threat of sovereign defaults poses a severe risk to the growth of African trade. Thus, African trade prospects remain unclear, considering the challenging global economic scenario.

The Covid-19, energy and food shortages have hit with the countries having minimal or no policy space to respond. As a result, African countries have fallen into a real risk of debt distress and even possibilities for sovereign debt default.

While insurers have been able to absorb the underwriting impacts of large loss events such as COVID-19, the impact on insurance companies’ profitability is still uncertain. 

This is according to a recent report by Deloitte, which states that despite the efforts put in place by governments to cushion the public from the adverse economic effects of the pandemic, the outlook on long-term impacts and recovery from the pandemic is still uncertain as it will take time for businesses to recover.  

“With stock markets showing declines in performance and flattening yield curves, insurers are set to experience poor performance in their investments and this will flow through to their bottom line results.”