40 HIGHLIGHTS: NURTURING AFRICAN TALENT AND EDUCATION Fostering future climate change experts However, the talent pool of highly skilled people remains limited due to constraints such as access to higher education and gender imbalance in technical sectors. To address this issue, we collaborated with Milliman Inc., a risk management, benefits, and technology company, to launch a postgraduate Africa Scholarship Programme at the beginning of 2023, exclusively for gifted African students. Driven by ARC Ltd. Legal Secretary Officer Anaïs Symenouh, the programme is aimed at further study in fields relating tomitigating the impact of climate change on African economies, like risk management and insurance, actuarial science, and agricultural statistics. It also seeks to assist students who cannot afford postgraduate studies while promoting gender equality and encouraging women students to apply. The four comprehensive scholarships will cover tuition, housing, living stipends, and other essential expenses for up to three years of full-time postgraduate study at the following esteemed universities: École Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Institut Interafricain de Formation en Assurance et en Gestion des Entreprises in Dakar, Senegal; theNational Universityof ScienceandTechnology in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. A prerequisite for this life-changing opportunity is that students must commit to working in an African country for two years after graduation, thereby giving back to the continent. For ARC Ltd., this initiative has several aims. The first is to increase the number of actuaries, data scientists and engineers in the insurance field across Africa. We believe this will raise the bar in the industry. While we pride ourselves on having some of the most highly skilled individuals working in the company, we are always looking to employ more short- and long-term talent. The initiative also presents an opportunity to shift the gender imbalance in traditionally male sectors, opening the door to women who want to break into the insurance industry. We believe that combining these aims results in a winning formula for fostering talent that will be consequential for the continent in addressing a pressing need. Partnering with Milliman Inc. As one of the world’s largest financial and professional services companies that specialise in actuarial science, Milliman Inc. was a perfect fit. It has been working on the African continent for several decades, helping mitigate risk in vulnerable countries through its actuarial strengths and modelling frameworks. The company also has a strong practice around micro- and meso-insurance – a As one of the most vulnerable continents to climate-change-induced disasters, Africa urgently needs more homegrown specialists in vital fields like actuarial science to develop African solutions to African problems. H I GHL I GHTS : NURTUR I NG AFR I CAN TAL ENT AND EDUCAT I ON
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