Actuarial Education : IFAGE’s commitment to the development of the actuarial profession in Sub-Saharan Africa

Located in Dakar (Senegal), the «InterAfrican Institute of Education in Insurance and Enterprise management» (hereafter called “IFAGE”) is a private postgraduate education Institute, specialized in Insurance in the CIMA zone and in French-speaking Africa.

IFAGE was created, in 2008, by an insurance professional, Mandaw KANDJI. IFAGE's mission is to contribute to the development of the insurance markets of the CIMA member states and the countries of the FANAF with an extensive curriculum of graduate and post-graduate programs.

The institute has launched new education programs taking into account the rapid evolving needs in the financial sector. New innovative programs such as Actuarial Science (2015), Wealth Management, Risk Management and Audit Accounting and Management Control have been put in place recently.

Inter-African Conference of Insurance Markets (CIMA) (www.cima-afrique.org/) : The regulatory body CIMA is a regional organization in West and Central Africa – mainly French-speaking countries – whose core objective is to work towards the establishment of a single insurance market. The organization was founded in 1992 in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé and is based in Libreville, Gabon. In order to achieve this goal, it relies upon a single set of laws and a single oversight authority to which all 14-member states (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Equatorial, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo) have transferred nearly all of their powers.

Mandaw Kandji was former head of the Division of Studies, Regulation and Training at the National Insurance Management (Direction Nationale des Assurances) of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Senegal and former Chief Controller of Insurance at the Secretarial Office of CIMA. The majority of the newly graduated youngsters were inserted smoothly and rapidly into the professional environment. To date the Institute has welcomed nationals and foreign students, coming from fourteen different African countries.

Being multilingual is a must in today’s business world. Therefore, IFAGE has opened a language center called IFAGE Language Center (ILC).

The year 2018 was marked by the realization of several projects :

• the launch of the Language Center (ILC);

• The creation and launch of a master’s in risk management in the CIMA zone;

• The creation of a postgraduate master’s in actuarial science in the CIMA zone;

• The creation of the postgraduate master in Audit Accounting and Management Control.

In December 2018, the Institute celebrated its ten years of existence and the first promotion of an undergraduate degree in Actuarial Sciences. Despite the lack of significant financial resources, the postgraduate master in actuarial science was launched in November 2018 with ten (10) students. The elected president of the Actuarial Society of South Africa, Lusani Mulaudzi was the first international visitor. In December 2018 He taught, a course on Financial Mathematics.

« In December 2018 I travelled to Dakar Senegal to present a Financial Mathematics course at IFAGE – a university focusing on insurance and risk management training. I was warmly received by the management of IFAGE and had an opportunity to meet some of the students and staff members within hours of my arrival. With only 10 days available for me to cover lots of ground I had to get to work immediately. There were many barriers to face including the language barrier but I was grateful that IFAGE provided a capable interpreter who holds an actuarial degree from a Canadian University. I enjoyed lecturing the students and challenging them to think from first principles instead of simply applying formulae. Towards the end of my time at IFAGE I was able to witness how the students transformed into confident financial mathematicians and future actuaries. »

Lusani Mulaudzi, December 2018.

In March 2019, IFAGE received Dr. José Daniel Lopez Barrientos who is a researcher at the Anáhuac University in Mexico. He taught the Actuarial Modeling Course (Contingencies).

« I arrived in Dakar very early in the morning of Saturday March the 2nd, 2019. The headmistress of IFAGE, Rokhaya Kandji, picked me up at the airport and, after a brief tour of the city and a delicious breakfast in a French coffee shop, she took me to IFAGE’s facilities to let me make the acquaintance of the staff and some of the undergraduate students. The students who took my course on Actuarial Mathematics were another pleasant surprise. All of them were absolutely enthusiastic about it, they were highly motivated, and everyone was very understanding with my many faults when it came to express myself in French. I believe that a special mention for the help of one of the leaders of the internationalization project of the Actuarial Program taught at IFAGE is in order, since she had an active participation during the daily five-hour lessons I gave to the alumni. As for the overall academic level of the pupils, I have nothing but praises : when they realized they lacked some a priori knowledge of the material, they did not think twice to look for references over the Internet, find some exercises and try to solve them by themselves. »

José Daniel Lopez Barrientos, March 2019.

Thanks to the involvement of the acturial associations, the quality of the actuarial education in the CIMA zone greatly improved. IFAGE became a window to the actuarial world in French speaking Africa countries.

IFAGE warmheartedly welcomes all experimented actuarial educators from all over the world to share their knowledge and provide our students the skills to respond to new challenges in the financial services sector.

Finally, IFAGE also thanks Actuaries Without Borders for their continued commitment and support through the Global Mentorship Program and short-term educational seminars in actuarial developing countries.

Mme Rokhaya Kandji
Directrice Générale IFAGE