Description: This article relates the experience of a retired actuary's volunteer's work in a USAID/Farmer to Farmer program. he work was to review the IFRS accounting treatment of a non-profit foundation based in Colombia.

Description: In this fifth issue of International News of 2022, we feature the following contributions: (1) Ruben John John Callo, FSA, FIAA, FLMI, and the SOA’s Ambassador to Australia under the Ambassador Program , presents an illustrative study aimed at helping consumers choose life insurance products using the “customer value per dollar” methodology, and although examples included relate to the Australian market, the methodological principles can be adopted in other markets; (2) Shirley Z. Song, FSA, MAAA, Member of the International Section Council, Josh Dobiac, MS,CAIA, and Yang Jing, deal with the Targeted Improvements to the Accounting of Long-Duration Contracts (LTDI), and the fact that both IFRS and US GAAP frameworks are evolving into a new financial reporting framework. The implications for US insurers are discussed.

Description: The South African life insurance industry contains the largest life insurance market in Africa, it is highly sophisticated and highly regulated. In the years 2020 and2021, the industry suffered significant mortality losses due toCovid-19. What can we learn from this experience in South Africa?

Description: Just in the recent two years, COVID-19 has demonstrated very impressively that a pandemic is not something for which one can fully prepare. However, what makes a pandemic so special and difficult to manage compared to other low frequency and high severity events such as volcanic eruptions or tsunami damage? Frank Schillerexplains what makes a pandemic so different, viz, information uncertainty, exponential growth, and time lags.