Extending Insurance?: Funeral Associations in Ethiopia and Tanzania

Stefan Dercon, Tessa Bold, Joachim De Weerdt and Alula Pankhurst

No 240, OECD Development Centre Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper studies the development of indigenous insurance institutions set up to help cover the high costs of funerals, using evidence from rural areas in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Many of these institutions tend to co-exist within the same community and are based on well-defined rules and regulations, often offering premium-based insurance for funeral expenses, as well as, in many cases, other forms of insurance and credit to help address hardship. The paper argues that the characteristics and inclusiveness of these institutions make them well placed as models to broaden insurance provision and other development activities in these communities. In Ethiopia, there is some encouraging experience with using these institutions, as reviewed in this paper. However, the paper argues that their fragility as institutions is well illustrated by current pressures related to HIV/AIDS, as well as by their apparent resistance to engage more broadly with NGOs and government agencies. As a ... A partir de données recueillies dans des zones rurales d’Éthiopie et de Tanzanie, ce document s’intéresse aux organismes locaux d’assurance qui ont fait leur apparition pour aider les familles à assumer les frais d’obsèques, souvent très lourds. Reposant sur une réglementation bien établie, la plupart d’entre eux coexistent au sein d’une même communauté. Ils proposent souvent une assurance « frais d’obsèques » fondée sur les primes ainsi que, dans de nombreux cas, d’autres produits d’assurance et de crédit permettant de faire face à d’éventuels revers. Les caractéristiques et l’ouverture totale de ces établissements en font des modèles intéressants pour la mise en place, dans ces communautés, d’autres services d’assurance ou d’autres activités de développement. En Éthiopie, leur utilisation a donné lieu à plusieurs expériences prometteuses dont ce document rend compte. Pour autant, les pressions exercées aujourd’hui par l’épidémie de sida et l’apparente réticence de ces ...

Date: 2004-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-fmk
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/103027727461 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Extending Insurance? Funeral associations in Ethiopa and Tanzania (2004)
Working Paper: Extending Insurance? Funeral associations in Ethiopa and Tanzania (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:devaaa:240-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Development Centre Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().