Feature
PRACTICE
Africa rising Risk management in Africa is fast becoming the focus of regulators and organisations alike. Discover how the IRM is working across the continent to help BY NEIL HODGE
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ver the past decade countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have taken great strides to foster increased accountability and transparency in both public and private sector organisations through better corporate governance. But more recently, regulators in several African countries have also begun to seriously promote risk management as a way of improving organisational performance and resilience. For example, Nigeria’s financial services regulator has identified risk management as an essential tool to provide assurance as the country embarks on implementing the Solvency II standard, which determines how much capital insurance and reinsurance companies should hold to avoid insolvency risk. Meanwhile, Kenya adopted a new code of corporate governance for the public sector in 2015. Called the Mwongozo code, it specifically states that organisations should have a risk management function and that boards needs to review the implementation of the risk management framework on a quarterly basis. It also says that boards must make a statement on risk management in the annual report, and that they have ultimate responsibility for monitoring whether risks taken are within set tolerance and appetite levels. In March 2016, Kenya also introduced new rules aimed at improving transparency among private sector organisations. The legislation will be implemented over
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Regulators and governments in Africa are very keen on pushing organisations to set up risk management functions
Enterprise Risk
