NSSA to launch social security for the informal sector

The National Social Security Authority (NSSA) intends to launch a social scheme targeting the informal sector by the end of the year, the state-owned pension fund said.

“The country carried out a feasibility study whose results are being used in designing and costing of a social security scheme,” said NSSA. “The country is planning to carry out a needs assessment scheme that responds best to the needs of the informal economy. The formal economy social security scheme launch is projected to take place in 2023.”

Zimbabwe’s economy is largely informal, with more than 80 percent of workers employed by informal enterprises. However, there are concerns that the larger portion of the population, currently employed in the informal sector, will fall into poverty in the future due to a lack of social protection schemes.

“Many informal workers have no health insurance, pensions, or any form of social protection and we need to come up with more innovative products for this sector,” Carlos Tadya, a Harare-based economist told this publication in an interview.

Elsewhere in Africa, Rwanda introduced the Ejo Heza scheme for the informal sector and the coverage has increased to more than 30 percent of the informal sector workers.

The long-term saving scheme was established by the Government of Rwanda. It is a defined contribution scheme, established on a voluntary basis by opening a savings account with a scheme administrator, the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) and covers both salaried and unsalaried people. These include self-employed who wish to save for the long term as well as salaried employed persons.

The RSSB collaborated with mobile money to improve the flexibility of contributions collections and benefits payments. Rwanda successfully introduced comprehensive health insurance whose coverage increased by 90 percent on the previously uncovered population.

Ivory Coast introduced a direct benefit scheme to self-employed and informal sector workers in March 2020.

In 2020, Egypt promulgated the law to extend mandatory coverage of old age and survivors’ programmes covering 10 new categories of workers including seasonal workers, irregular workers, and domestic workers.

In 2019, Nigeria launched a voluntary micro-pension plan for self-employed workers.-ebsuinessweekly