CA-Africa and CIC Insurance champion cooperative health solutions to advance universal health coverage in Africa
NAIROBI, May 28, 2026 — ICA-Africa, in partnership with the CIC Group, recently convened a Health Cooperative Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop, themed “Leveraging Health Cooperative Systems to Promote Good Health and Well-Being in Africa”, brought together policymakers, cooperative leaders and healthcare experts to address the persistent challenges of healthcare affordability and accessibility across the continent.
Breaking barriers through micro-insurance
A central theme of the discussions was the success of cooperative micro-insurance models. Across Africa, informal sector workers continue to face staggering out-of-pocket healthcare costs that often drive families into poverty. The workshop highlighted how cooperative-led insurance schemes are helping to bridge this gap by offering affordable premiums and expanding healthcare coverage to people traditionally excluded from formal social security systems.
Learning from global cooperative health systems
The workshop also featured comparative lessons drawn from international experiences, including case studies from Brazil, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. These examples demonstrated how cooperative health systems can improve efficiency, expand healthcare coverage and enhance working conditions for healthcare professionals.
Across these contexts, cooperative structures have played a critical role in connecting underserved populations with essential health services, particularly in rural and informal settings.
By promoting community-owned clinics and healthcare worker cooperatives, countries can build healthcare systems that are more responsive to people’s needs than traditional top-down approaches.
As Africa continues its pursuit of Universal Health Coverage, cooperative models are increasingly gaining recognition as a viable pathway for reaching underserved populations and strengthening health systems from the ground up.
The workshop concluded with a shared commitment to deepen collaboration, scale up cooperative health innovations and strengthen policy environments that support their growth.
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