Paris Peace Forum: Building a safer, fairer and more inclusive world

The inaugural edition or the Paris Peace Forum is held on November 11-13 in Paris. This new international event is dedicated to promoting peace through collective action and global governance. It will gather stakeholders annually from all over the world around five key topics: peace and security, environment, development, new technologies, and inclusive economy.

 AXA is grand partner of the event and will take this occasion to showcase its projects, solutions and initiatives aimed at building a safer, fairer and more inclusive world.

AXA’s Inclusive Insurance initiative: Building resilience for vulnerable populations

The role of insurance is to protect people over the long term, thereby contributing to both economic growth and social stability. Within an inclusive economy, insurance can play a role in economic development by avoiding a return to precariousness in case of unforeseen circumstances. Indeed, putting in place insurance mechanisms is a means in itself to help a country develop economically.

This is why AXA has developed inclusive insurance schemes to address the needs of emerging customers and prevent them from falling back into poverty. The Group has also embraced parametric insurance, harnessing data science and advancements in satellite and weather technology to overhaul the existing insurance model.

Tobacco Free Movement: AXA keeps leading the way

Tobacco is the single greatest preventable cause of premature death on the planet today, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where smoking is most prevalent. Tobacco thus disproportionately harms emerging countries’ human resources to the detriment of their social and economic development.

Additionally, the healthcare costs associated with smoking outweigh income from tobacco taxes with the total global economic impact from smoking estimated at 2 trillion Euros per year, as much as the cost of armed violence, war and terrorism and more than obesity, alcoholism or climate change.

Given the facts, AXA decided that as a responsible insurer and investor, it could not continue to support an industry that represents what is perhaps the greatest public health threat in the world today.

In response, under the auspices of the not-for-profit organization Tobacco Free Portfolios, AXA ceased both investments and insurance activities with the tobacco industry in 2016. At the time, this commitment represented respectively €1.8bn in general accounts and €10-15m in annual revenues. Other financial institutions—notably BNP Paribas, Natixis and SCOR—have done likewise.

Today, AXA and its peers encourage all investors to join the momentum by becoming a signatory to the Tobacco Free Pledge.