Across Ethiopia, iddir has been formed by neighborhoods to collaborate at times of death of a member or a member's family. The iddir register their members, families, and affiliates using a paper book. All records regarding the members' circumstances are registered manually in the book.
This makes the register very difficult for future reference and computations as the iddir keeps on working for years and decades.
Tigist Bezu is the founder and general manager of the Ethiopian Branch of Jami 1 Data Procession Company. After graduating with a degree in information science from Addis Ababa University, she has been working at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in different positions. After travelling to Sweden to pursue higher studies she has mastered Business Administration.
In 2019 she returned home to help local credit and saving associations digitize their registry systems. Coincidentally the work was interrupted due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the outbreak of the epidemic brought another important assignment for the data processing specialist.
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She started to manoeuvre youth to neighborhoods where bidders operate to sensitize them on the importance of digitizing the membership's records and the bidder's service.
Beyond managing their routine jobs digitalizing iddir record data systems can fast-track the league's financial inclusion. As such the iddirs can benefit from the mainstream life insurance services availed by the operational insurance companies.
Iddirs normally provide financial coverage upon the death of members or a registered family of the member. The money is spent on covering the funeral expenses of the deceased member. Yet the family and dependents of the deceased member would be vulnerable to financial and economic shocks that no iddir has given a solution to so far.
Both Iddirs and insurance companies have been working in the country for many decades. However, the two entities never looked at each other as having working relations. One of the reasons for this, according to Tigist, is the absence of a service provider that closed the gap and worked as a bridge to connect the two.
Microfinance and insurance companies could have stepped in during such incidents. Yet due to operational procedure, they cannot provide money without collateral which the iddir and their members cannot afford.
In the iddirs, the asset that can serve as collateral is detailed information about the iddir members and their families. Normally the iddirs keep the information or data about their members using a manual or paper-based bookkeeping system.
If all insurance companies want to use paper-based records as collateral, they cannot go to each and every neighborhood to do the registration and data collection. On top of that the manual data processing makes it cumbersome for them to easily execute the underwriting and claim handling works. As a result, they were unable to provide the services so far.
The digital database would simplify the operational efficiency of insurance for finance inclusion, Tigist explains. Hence, insurance companies can easily process.
Tigist says that the digital record system can serve as a replacement for collateral so that they can secure micro financial or insurance services to counter the socio-economic pitfalls they face after the death of a member.
According to Tigist in three years' time, thanks to Jami 1's database service, the company has managed to onboard a large number of insurance service clients which exceeds the number that it accessed in 18 years. So far the company has registered over 1 million members of iddirs in all corners of the country.
"Through the Memorandum of Understanding, we signed with the Labor and Social Affairs Offices of states as well as the 11 sub-cities in Addis Ababa we have registered over 170 thousand iddirs. They are now able to benefit from micro-insurance services. In line with that, they have also received over 1500 instances of premium payment from Agar MFI"
According to Tigist, the rising number of mobile phone penetration and internet service coverage has helped the digitalization of data. In the future in collaboration with the National Union of iddir and the Insurance Corporation of Ethiopia, there is a plan to register about 5 million people in the database.
In this regard, Jami 1 Ethiopia stands as the sole institution that is able to poor the data about such a large number of iddir members. As a result, the service in the future is likely to benefit 40 million Ethiopians that are direct and indirect members of iddir.
"In addition to those active members, dependents of a household are also beneficiaries of the financial and insurance service. Therefore we are likely to reach out to such a large number of populations."
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She says what makes Jami 1 important is unlike the paper-based, traditional bookkeeping system the data of iddir registered under a digital database is more likely to be secured and reliable for long-term use.
Once the iddir is registered in the database, the members can give consent to the use of their data by financial and insurance service providers and obtain the company's services. However, if they go to these institutions individually, the administrative or service cost would be very expensive. It requires a medical exam, age limit ... etc. Yet when they go to them in groups like under the umbrella of iddir, the service is more affordable.
The Jami1 application is available for use on smart phones. Tigist says the applications are designed as text lite and people in Ethiopia can use them in their local languages like Amharic and Afan Oromo. She says that at the outset many people thought that the idea of digitizing the records of the iddirs was crazy. Indeed Jami 1 started at a time when the network system was challenging, but by now the iddirs and their members themselves do not want to see the insurance interrupted.
BY ZEKARIAS WOLDEMARIAM
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 15, July 2025
