…Partners with the Anglican Church
BUSINESSS WRITER
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe has expanded its tentacles to churches after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide insurance, farming solutions and logistics service to the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland Province.
The MoU was signed on Friday and will see thousands of members from 53 churches run by the Diocese, along with several schools and hospitals under its ambits, have access to medical, life and general insurance as well as other technical products from the listed financial services group.
Eddie Chibi, Cassava Smartech’s CEO, said the group was excited to partner and assist the Anglican Church to achieve its objectives of transforming societies and sustaining livelihoods.
“Today’s [Friday] event is evidence of Cassava’s commitment to the development of innovative digital solutions that improve the lives of people in Zimbabwe and that offer convenience. Our model is built on providing digital solutions that address the day-to-day challenges faced by our customers,” he said.
Under the MoU, Cassava will underwrite the Anglican Church’s properties, buildings and vehicles, funeral policies, medical insurance, VAYA buses and other logistics, as well as providing farming technologies.
Chibi said the concept of insurance was still under-developed in Africa, with less than 5% of the continent’s over 1.2bn population insured, thus hindering growth among marginalised populations.
“Our solutions are offered through an innovative model, allowing us to bring down insurance premiums to as low as US$0.50 per month, taking advantage of strategic partnerships with mobile network providers, mobile money and various industry providers. Our solutions also include mobile money platforms for premium collections,” he said.
Chibi also urged other churches to follow the example set by the Anglican Manicaland Diocese in providing their members with life and funeral cover and insuring their properties as a way of managing and minimising risk.
In addition to insurance, Cassava will help the Diocese with a technology-driven approach to agriculture, aimed at increasing productivity within the churches’ value chain and improving the quality of lives for students, patients and parishioners.
Anglican Bishop Erick Ruwona said the church’s vision was to “improve the social and economic lives of our communities here on earth as well as in the afterlife”.
Anglicans work alongside some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, and also seek to impact the influential and powerful through representation at platforms such as the United Nations.
