COVID-19 and the World of Work

Technical Meeting on improving access to social security for the informal sector

The technical meeting brought together, the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) senior management and informal sector creative and agriculture representatives to discuss challenges and potential solutions to enable ease of access to social security.

Project document | 29 March 2021
Meeting participants
As we enter into the second year of the COVID-19 new normal and continued pessimistic outlook for our tourism industry, social protection including social security continues to be a priority for the International Labour Organization (ILO). The transition from formal employment to informality identified in the 2020 UN Social & Economic Impact Assessment (UNSEIA)[1] of COVID-19 continues and would have surpassed pre-COVID-19 baseline of 66.2% of workers in the informal sector.
As the informal sector bulge increases and vulnerabilities of workers and micro entrepreneur’s increases, the ILO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) convened a technical meeting from 25-26 February 2021.

meeting discussions
The technical meeting brought together, the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) senior management and informal sector creative and agriculture representatives to discuss challenges and potential solutions to enable ease of access to social security. the following four strategies, that are not currently being implemented by FNPF, were identified:

1. Branding and promotion of the voluntary contribution scheme for informal sector micro entrepreneurs and workers (successfully demonstrated by UNCDF in the Solomon Islands)
2. Alternative contributions (instead of cash) to the voluntary scheme
3. Deployment of FNPF agents in the field (villages, etc)
4. Venture capital/micro enterprise loan guarantee scheme
The participants to the technical workshop agreed that the four activities can result in getting additional 5,000 voluntary members (micro entrepreneurs and workers in the informal sector) to join or re-contribute to the FNPF/pension scheme. This was based on pre- work (feasibility study and pilot) already done by UNCDF in Fiji, Vanuatu and PNG with the good practice in Solomon Islands (22,000 from informal sector registered).

In March a follow up meeting was convened between FNPF, ILO and UNCDF to review and prioritise the outcomes of the technical meeting.

It was agreed that the following recommended strategies was feasible, linked with FNPF priorities and supports the delivering the project output:

(a) Branding and promotion of the voluntary contribution scheme for informal sector micro entrepreneurs and workers
(b) Deployment of FNPF agents in the field (villages, etc)

It was also agreed that (a) above will be led and supported by ILO and activity (b) by UNCDF and an advisory committee established to oversee the implementation.

A concept note for the implementation of the above two priorities has been submitted to FNPF for endorsement.

This initiative is implemented in the context of a joint project entitled “Inclusive Economic Recovery through Sustainable Enterprises in the Informal Economies of Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu”.