Risk management is the process of identifying, analysing, accepting, mitigating or transferring uncertainty in investment decisions. Fund managers apply risk management by analysing and attempting to quantify the potential loss of an investment and then acting accordingly.

Institutions are being transformed thanks to the integration of new technologies. This vision represents a corporate change with a social impact, reducing costs, simplifying processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

During COVID-19, many members’ livelihood of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF or hereafter the Fund) of Uganda was disrupted, and Government expedite the amendment of the NSSF Act to allow the savers access 20 per cent of their saving if they reach 45 years and have saved for over ten years. This new benefit was termed Mid-Term Access.

To receive this benefit 112,000 members were eligible for the calendar year 2022
(January–December). This was going to be an uphill task given that the Fund previously paid approximately 20,000 members annually.

Article 12 of Law No. 5508 on the Promotion, Protection of Maternity and Support for Breastfeeding establishes that maternity allowance should be paid to employed women by the social security scheme of Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS). This amount is equivalent to 100 per cent of her salary at the time of delivery, and is paid for the prescribed months of rest. This used to be given to women in a single payment.

The issue of population growth and social security planning is one of the biggest challenges facing governments today, and is a key part of a good social security system that instils confidence in its members.

The Retirement and Pension Fund for Employees of Banks and Related Institutions (Caja de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados de Bancos y Afines) (Bank Fund, hereinafter) is in constant communication with its members. It therefore continuously updates its databases, in order to have a better understanding of members’ current realities, experiences and needs.

Digital transformation is happening in institutions through the integration of new technologies. This vision represents an institutional and social change, optimizing available resources, reducing costs, shortening processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was an abrupt disruption that caused loss of lives, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety on how to manage the health, social and economic effects. Several of our members ended up needing specialised treatment from private medical facilities. Being unprecedented, insurance companies had limitations on coverage since this was a pandemic. This meant that members had to resort to out-of-pocket payment to cover the enormous medical bills.

Good practice in health – service quality.

As health-care systems have evolved to become more complex and due to the resultant increase in patients coming to harm in health care settings, patient safety has emerged as a health-care discipline.

The Actuarial Advisory Office (Asesoría Actuarial) of the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) carried out an actuarial valuation of the Common Retirement and Pension Fund (Fondo Común de Jubilaciones y Pensiones). The valuation looks to comply with international best practices and observe the guidelines and standards of the International Standards of Actuarial Practice 2 (ISAP 2), and the ISSA-ILO Guidelines on Actuarial Work for Social Security, with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

With many entities shifting their data from hard copies to digital computer systems in the early 1990s, there was a heavy reliance on human labour that was required to do the data entry process. This process however, did not come without consequences some of which included digitisation of existing errors, human error in the data capture, creation of suspense balances and subsequent loss of data. These challenges culminated into poor quality data, a critical matter that many entities are still facing to date. The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) of Uganda is no exception.

Like most of the world’s countries, Paraguay has adopted lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These steps taken by the government have impacted the productive sector, leading to mass suspensions of employment contracts for persons insured with the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) of Paraguay.

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) is a national saving scheme mandated by the Government of Uganda to provide social security services to employees in Uganda. Serving as a provident fund, NSSF (or the Fund) provides a mandatory retirement savings programme for its members in the formal sector.

The principal mandate of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) of Uganda is to collect contributions, 5 per cent from the member and 10 per cent from the employer, invest and then pay out benefits to qualifying members. To qualify, members need to fall in any of the following claim categories: age benefit, emigration grant, exempted employment, invalidity benefit and survivors benefit.

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) would like to provide all its members effective social risk management solutions. Members should trust that the Fund delivers what it promises. The Fund has faced accusations that qualifying members are not paid their savings when they are due. It was also reported that most members use up all their savings within 48 months after payment.

The Fund developed a public tactical campaign that sought to show that:

In a fast changing world, effective data management differentiates efficient organizations from the rest. In the past, the National Social Security Fund (herafter, The Fund) struggled with data management. This process was manual and required a team of dedicated staff. Posting of contributions to member accounts witnessed delays and some cases, totally forgotten. The result was that in June 2014, The Fund had USD 30 million in suspense accounts. The Straight Through Process (STP) project for contribution collection was implemented to ensure that:

To make it more convenient for members to access NSSF's services and to reduce the costs of its operations, the NSSF introduced electronic service delivery channels to enable members to view their contribution balances and follow up their claim processing on mobile phones, through the internet and via the toll free line managed through the call centre.

An eligible member has to submit all required information to enable their benefits to be processed. However, even after receiving all the required information, it took the NSSF an average of 105 days to pay the member. This high turnaround time to pay benefits led to a distrust of the NSSF and tarnished its image.

In November 2010, new management embarked on an urgent initiative to restructure NSSF operations in order to gain public trust, grow membership, increase contributions and reduce operating costs. An operating model emphasizing relationship management was introduced to raise compliance levels, grow membership and reduce overall operating costs. The NSSF has shortened processing times and improved customer service.

A communication programme was also rolled out to remind employers and employees of their rights and obligations.

Our approach, that is based on the COSO framework, commences with determining the business objectives and the Fund's risk appetite, identification of events that may hinder the Fund from achieving its objectives, evaluation of the magnitude and likelihood of crystallization of risk events, considering the extent to which we already have controls in place to mitigate or capitalise on these risks, deciding how to respond to the residual risks, i.e. avoiding, reducing, sharing or simply accepting them and putting in place mechanisms to address them.

The Fund has concluded year one of executing the plan that was initiated in March 2007. This plan sets out the Funds strategic objectives over the course of the five years and the necessary capabilities and processes required to achieve these objectives.

The development of the plan was participatory, it involved the Board members, senior staff and solicited and included views of key stakeholders.