The ISSA Technical seminar on digitalization to leverage extension of social security coverage in West Africa will take place in Accra, Ghana, 2−3 October 2023. It is organized back-to-back with the opening ceremony of the ISSA Liaison Office for West Africa, to be hosted by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust of Ghana.

Based on sustained government commitment and development of institutional capacities, social security in West Africa has made important progress over the past decade through strengthening both legal frameworks and administrative structures. This encouraging result was one of the conclusions of the Regional Social Security Forum for Africa, held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 17–19 May 2023. However, large segments of the population, and in particular workers in the informal sector, remain without social security coverage.

At the same time, the measures taken to cope with the COVID-19 crisis and more particularly accelerated digitalization of procedures, the development of banking services for insured persons and the introduction of new services based on mobile phone technologies, not only made it possible to cushion the effect of the crisis, but also created new opportunities to extend social security coverage to difficult-to-reach categories of workers.

Against this background and based on the ISSA Guidelines on administrative solutions for the extension of coverage, the objective of the technical seminar is to identify innovative solutions and good practices in the use of digital and mobile technologies to extend social security coverage.

The working languages will be English and French and simultaneous interpretation will be provided for both languages. The technical seminar is open to representatives of ISSA member institutions from West Africa, as well as invited participants. There is no registration fee for ISSA members.