SPF receives ISSA awards for good practice |23 October 2021
Seychelles Pension Fund personified success with a string of awards and special mentions with regard to its involvement in international awards organised by social security governing bodies, notably the International Social Security Association and the Pensions & Investments World Pension Summit Innovation Awards.
These awards, through a bi-annual competition, are aimed at challenging innovation and the sharing of good practices within the International social security organisations, of which the Seychelles Pension Fund (SPF) is a member.
Seychelles joined Morocco and Algeria as the winning participating countries to present their respective projects in the online forum entitled ‘Developing a culture of Social Security through communication and education’ in a virtual presentation on Wednesday October 6, 2021. SPF was requested to make a presentation of one of its entries which earned a certificate of merit – a cartoon strip entitled ‘Zan mon zanmi pansyon’ which featured in national newspapers in 2018.
The cartoon strip which was developed as a supporting tool to the ‘Pas kot Fon Pansyon pour en konversasyon’ campaign, was to realign ownership of credible source of information about pension. This was developed at a time when the SPF was experiencing difficulties in this area as ill-informed social media opinion leaders /formers were making contradictory statements about SPF, thus negatively influencing the members and its brand. Other notable tool set up to support the strategy was the institutionalising of a customer service section within the organisation.
In 2020, the SPF participated with a list of new innovative ideas undertaken during 2019-2020 and was awarded with Certificates of Good Practice from ISSA for the following:
a) The Voluntary Contribution Starter Gift Voucher
This product earned SPF a nominated finalist spot for the Annual Pensions & Investments World Pension Summit Innovation Awards 2020, as well as special mention for Certificate of Merit with special mention for ISSA good practice for Africa. The objective was to identify ways in which existing contributors or retirees can influence significant others and loved ones through advocacy, to consider saving through the Voluntary Contribution Scheme by targeting gifting as a consumer behaviour trait.
As a result of the positive outpour, SPF will soon be launching the online version of the Voluntary contribution gift voucher available from the e-contribution tab on its website www.pensionfund.sc in time for the festive season.
Below is the list of other innovative ideas SPF submitted which were awarded with special mentions:
Certificates of Merit
- Educational cartoon strips in national media: to promote correct information-sourcing for members reaching out for pension education;
- Extended Mark-up Language Files: implementation of an automatic data capture to allow for timely posting of allocations and to reduce human error;
- Pension e-Service: enabling members to register and obtain access to their Statement of Accounts online, at any given time.
- Pension in figures: A pocket-sized booklet to reach out to members in an effort to be more transparent and promote easy access and a more practical way of keeping abreast of SPF’s financial and operational activities.
- Protecting you: Informal Sector Campaign; Engaging effectively with workers in the informal sector by targeting individual groups independently.