Ghana elected Vice President of Organization of African Insurance Supervisory Authorities

Ghana’s Commissioner of Insurance, Dr. Abiba Zakariah, has been elected Vice President of the Organization of African Insurance Supervisory Authorities (OAISA) at the body’s 2025 Annual General Meeting, held from 16th to 21st November in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Dr. Zakariah’s election is widely regarded as a strong endorsement of Ghana’s growing leadership in insurance regulation and the ongoing reforms within the sector, a working document obtained by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA CONSULT) in Accra on Monday revealed.

Dr. Zakariah, who is the Commissioner of Insurance, National Insurance Commission (NIC), reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to supporting the development of a resilient, inclusive, and well-regulated insurance market across the continent.

She underscored the importance of strengthening supervisory frameworks and enhancing the global competitiveness of Africa’s insurance industry, in line with international best practices.

According to the document, Mr. Issouf Traoré of Côte d’Ivoire was elected president of the organization.

Both executives will serve a two-year renewable term, ushering in what stakeholders anticipate will be a more unified and forward-looking leadership for the continental regulatory body.

According to the document, the week-long meeting brought together insurance regulators from 24 African countries to deepen cooperation and promote the harmonization of supervisory standards.

Discussions generally focused on risk-based supervision, emerging market trends, and regulatory best practices.

The 2025 OAISA Annual Meeting reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to a credible and unified regulatory framework while highlighting the need for stronger Anglophone–Francophone collaboration to support sustainable market development and continental integration.

The NIC was established by the Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), which has repealed Act 2006 (Act 724) and replaced Insurance Law, 1989 (P.N.D.C.L. 227) to ensure effective administration, supervision, regulation, monitoring and control of the business of insurance, to protect insurance policyholders and the insurance industry.

The NIC, among other things, according to Dr Zakaria is committed to ensuring that Insurance Companies operating in the Ghanaian Market survive, are financially sound and honour their obligations towards policyholders.

She explained that the NIC’s ultimate objective is to establish an efficient, fair, safe and stable Insurance Market, which promotes healthy competition and growth in the interest of policyholders for the benefit of all.

“When that state of affairs is attained in the Ghana Insurance Market, it could be said that insurance service delivery in Ghana has reached a level where it can be easily integrated into the Global Financial Services Sector.

“To attain this desired objective, the NIC has taken a number of initiatives aimed at strengthening the Human Resource Base of the Industry, increasing the Financial Soundness and Governance of Insurance Companies; and ensuring that Policyholders are fairly treated,” she stated.

Dr Zakaria stressed that as at now the NIC has under its supervision 25 non-life insurance companies, 17 life insurance companies, 3 reinsurance companies, 8 reinsurance brokers, 3 loss adjusters, 119 insurance broking companies and about 12,500 insurance agents.

She added that “NIC believes that one way of developing transparency in the Ghana Insurance Market is to increase public awareness about insurance issues and the operations of the NIC.”

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