As social security institutions have adapted and responded to the needs of their members during the coronavirus crisis, so has the ISSA. As a result, we have been able to accelerate our strategy to diversify our services and also increase the impact of ISSA’s knowledge on the staff of our member institutions.

One pillar of this development has been the ISSA webinar programme. I am very pleased that since the first webinar in April 2020, more than 4,000 representatives of ISSA member institutions registered for the 32 webinars that we have organized. Many more have also watched the recordings of the webinars at the time of their choice, as all are available on the ISSA website.

We have also transformed our Academy diploma programme into e-learning courses, and our ten courses to date have been met with much interest. The launch of a new series of e- workshops to support collaborative problem solving by social security institutions will be another highlight foreseen for November, followed by our first virtual Regional Social Security Summit for the Americas in December.

It is also positive to see that through our virtual activities, we have been able to reach many more staff of our member institutions. Over 1,000 new MyISSA accounts have been created during the last five months for member institution staff. We expect that this active ISSA community will continue to grow through our new MyISSA web environment that will soon allow for enhanced networking, group spaces and community exchanges.

Finally, I am proud to inform you that the ISSA membership has for the first time in the ISSA history reached over 160 countries. I sincerely hope that our new services will further contribute to delivering a high value for all our member institutions in 161 countries.

On 10 September 2020, G20 labour and employment ministers met virtually to discuss the impact of, and necessary responses to, the COVID-19 crisis. Social protection was one of four priority areas highlighted in the declaration from the meeting. The ministers emphasized the need to work closely with international organizations, acknowledging the important contributions by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) alongside the International Labour Office, the OECD and the World Bank.

Social security stands at the core of national responses to the pandemic across the world. The coronavirus has hit societies and economies hard, and the social and economic consequences for people have been dramatic. According to the G20 labour and employment ministers’ Declaration, an equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2020, compared to one year before.

Read more on the ISSA website.

Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the ISSA has mapped over 1,400 social security responses from more than 200 countries, territories and areas around the world. The ISSA’s database on Coronavirus country measures is now part of the Oxford Supertracker, a repository of reliable international sources of information linked to COVID-19.

Seldom has a disease had such an abrupt and major global impact on people, economies and societies as that of COVID-19. Caused by a coronavirus that was unknown to almost everyone as we entered 2020, COVID-19 is today on everyone’s mind every day. International organizations, governments, civil society, universities and research organizations have worked intensively to analyse and address this global crisis.

Read more on the ISSA website.

Partial unemployment schemes, sometimes called short-term work schemes, are one of the key mechanisms to reduce both the degree of sudden economic downturns and their labour market and social impacts. As reported by the ISSA in March, these schemes, which allow employers to flexibly reduce working hours of their employees while the income loss of employees is covered through unemployment insurance, were extended or newly implemented at a massive scale shortly after the onset of the coronavirus crisis. In many cases, they were considered an essential measure to cushion the economic shock resulting from lockdown restrictions.

Read more on the ISSA website.

To mitigate the social impact of the COVID-19 crisis, a significant number of countries have introduced temporary cash transfers to population groups in, or at risk of, poverty. These payments have responded to the specific needs of these vulnerable groups who are immediately affected by a reduction in their job opportunities or income. In addition to supporting low-income families, children, informal economy workers or older persons with low or no pension income, a number of cash transfer programmes have also aimed at maintaining domestic consumption.

Read more on the ISSA website.

The ISSA virtual Regional Social Security Summit for the Americas will take place on 3 December 2020, under the theme “Towards a new normal: Challenges and opportunities”. The Virtual Summit will be an opportunity to take stock of the dynamic social security responses to COVID-19 and assessing the lessons learnt and the long-term challenges.

The ISSA Regional Social Security Forum (RSSF) for the Americas that was planned to take place in December 2020 has been postponed to December 2021.

Read more on the ISSA website.

The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO) organized the first ever ISSA e-learning diploma training courses, between 1 June and 10 July. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the planned residential courses could not take place and all the courses were turned into virtual learning experiences.

ISSA welcomed 125 participants from 14 countries and 29 different social security institutions participated in this e-learning adventure, which lasted six weeks and ended with the submission of their individual assignments. In addition, the ISSA’s other training partners, the Muhanna Foundation and EN3S, are now providing e-learning courses in Arabic and French respectively.

Read what the participants thought about this new learning journey on the ISSA website.

Society faces the challenge of achieving international commitments on sustainable development, universal social protection and universal health coverage through ambitious social security programmes based, inter alia, on the contribution of the mutual benefit model, recognition of its potential and the enhancement of its added value.

Have access to the report prepared by the ISSA Technical Commission on Mutual Benefit Societies The contribution of the mutual benefit movement to universal social protection, which looks at the role of mutual benefit societies contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Read more on the ISSA website.