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Pro MHI Africa
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Welcome to the project "Pro MHI Africa"

This new research project at the University of Cologne, Germany, in cooperation with the University of Ghana, Malawi and Botswana investigates a promising approach to reduce poverty - Similar to the way low-income people could improve their living conditions through access to microcredit and savings, affordable health insurance can avert risks of illnesses. The "Pro MHI Africa"-research project will analyse how access to proper insurance for all can be reached successfully.
* * * kick-off-meeting was successfully conducted * * * field research is being prepared * * *
Micro Health Insurance for low-income population in Botswana, Ghana, and Malawi – an approach to reduce poverty

Micro health insurance tries to overcome the vicious circle of poverty and illness. Within the "Pro MHI Africa"-project the Department for Cooperative Studies at the University of Cologne and its partners, the Universities of Ghana, Malawi, and Botswana will analyse micro health insurance units in these three African countries and give academic attendance.

On the basis of scientific outcomes, the university network plans to introduce a common micro insurance diploma to prepare students to become policy makers for the expanding (micro-) insurance markets and to qualify them as experts for micro health insurance. The project “Pro MHI Africa” is funded by the Edulink programme of the European Union.

Read more about the objectives of the projects

Background information:

  • Private insurance products hardly exist for the rural and urban poor and in cases where they do exist they are usually not affordable for them - Public Social Insurance Services are mostly insufficient and exclude people working in the informal sector

  • Nine out of ten people in Sub-Sahara Africa do not have any access to health or accident insurance - they have to pay tremendously high fees for treatment, medical care and hospitalisation out of pocket

  • Especially those people living below the poverty line (more than 40% in Sub-Saharan Africa) have to take out loans, dissolve their savings or sell essential resources to pay for their treatment - In fact, many people fall into poverty due to illness and treatment costs