Rwandans should expect extended social security coverage, especially for workers in the informal economy, for improved welfare following knowledge and skills that the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) staff got from the International Labour Organization (ILO), officials have said.

The training for RSSB staff on social security administration and governance, ran for five days, from June 5 through June 9.

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It focused on strengthening administration of the six schemes managed by RSSB and their sustainability. The schemes are pension; occupational hazards; medical scheme (consisting of medical insurance for formal employees of public and private sectors); maternity leave, community-based health insurance scheme (CBHI); and the long-term savings scheme (EjoHeza) which is mainly meant for retirement benefits for informal sector workers.

It was organised by RSSB, with the support of ILO – the United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards – and the Governments of Belgium and Luxembourg.

RSSB CEO Regis Rugemanshuro said the training of the personnel is a key ingredient to deliver the RSSB strategic plan 2025 to make RSSB a Member First, Data Driven, High Performing modern organization. He highlighted that this particular training by ILO, among many others, equipped RSSB personnel, especially managers with the required up-to-date knowledge and skills for efficient social security administration.

On major contributions expected from the training, Rugemanshuro cited investing more efforts for the extension of social security, mainly to the people in the informal sector which employs the majority of Rwandans such as farmers, construction workers, tailors, mining workers, motorcycle taxi drivers and others.

Another area expected to be furthered, he said, is "sustainability, which is about meeting the social security benefits and social economic investments of the present without compromising the ability of the fund to meet future liabilities”

"What we want is that every member of the Rwandan family is socially protected, be it in terms of health so that one receives medical care once he/she becomes ill, gets occupational hazards benefits in case they suffer from an incapacitating accident or disease while at work, and pension benefits upon retirement,” Rugemanshuro added.

He also indicated that RSSB is leveraging technology to ensure ease of access to services and compliance with social security contributions, referring to recently launched digital platforms such as www.imusanzu.rssb.rw to allow members access the status of their contributions and make sure there are no contribution gaps by employers, as well as the kwivuza digital platform being rolled out at the primary healthcare facilities to reduce invoice generation, verification and payment process from 60 days to less than 15 days today for those onboarded. This is part of RSSB&039;s goal to be "zero paper, zero steps” by 2025.

The Social Protection Project Manager at ILO in Rwanda, Aurélie Klein, said the training focused on international labour and social security standards and guidelines.

RSSB, she indicated, was already doing a lot of work in that regard because it has already been given awards by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) twice – in 2019 (for the community-based health insurance) and in 2023 (for EjoHeza).

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Odette Nyiramuzima, one of the RSSB staff members who benefited from the training, said it was fruitful as it equipped participants with knowledge of governance structure and mechanisms that support and promote good governance practice in key areas of social security administration and governance.

"Participants gained more knowledge on ILO social security standards and ISSA guidelines, which help to address some challenges that Rwanda is facing namely ensuring coverage of extension to the informal sector workers, among others,” she said.

Another participant, James Nkurunziza, added "we are going to do whatever possible to implement what we have learnt from the training, more especially in extension of coverage [particularly to the informal sector].”

Meanwhile, Rugemanshuro said that the real value of the above-mentioned training will be determined by the benefits that RSSB members will get through the improved performance of its personnel and RSSB as an organization.

To this end, he urged the trained personnel to put to good use the knowledge and skills they acquired for the betterment of the members and greater achievements of RSSB, pointing out that RSSB’s goal is to have all Rwandans socially protected, and make significant sustainable contribution to the social economic development of the country.

Data on some of the social security schemes

According to data from RSSB, the pension scheme it manages has more than 714,000 pension contributors – representing 9 per cent coverage of Rwanda's total working age population – and 53,200 pensioners.

RAMA medical insurance accounts for more than 220,000 affiliates, and 444,200 dependents, bringing the total to more than 664,000 (contributors and dependents).

For EjoHeza, it has so far registered more than 2.7 million savers; while the CBHI members are 11.3 million, which implies a coverage of 90.5 per cent of the Rwandan population that this health insurance scheme covers.