May 2026
28May

Kenya’s 18.1 Million Informal Workers Hold The Future Of Pensions

Kenya created over 822,000 new jobs in 2025, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Economic Survey 2026 released recently.  At first glance, this signals a resilient economy. But the composition of those jobs tells a more important story that reshape how we think about savings, pensions, and financial security. Over 87% of these jobs were created in the informal sector. Today, 83.8% of Kenya’s workforce, about 18.1 million people, earn their living outside formal employment. This is not...

May 28, 2026
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22May

Financial Stability Review 2025

By Financial Stability Council The Financial Stability Review evaluates developments in Ghana’s financial system, with emphasis on policies implemented to mitigate emerging risks to financial stability. This report is organised into eight (8) chapters: macro-financial developments, developments in Ghana’s financial system, assessment of the Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Pensions Industries, financial sector resilience, and a special features section that highlights topical issues of relevance to financial stability. In this current edition, two new sections have been introduced – key Financial...

May 22, 2026
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22May

Informality, Gender and Aging. Cumulative Inequalities and Intergenerational Effects

By Haut Comissariat Au Plan Since 2021, His Majesty King Mohammed VI’s High Guidance on social development has driven a structural project to extend social protection, focusing on the expansion of mandatory health coverage, the gradual integration of self-employed workers into pension schemes, and the introduction of universal family allowances. The New Development Model sets out this vision by establishing objectives in terms of decent employment, the economic inclusion of women, and intergenerational sustainability. The analysis presented in this report examines, in...

May 22, 2026
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21May

Ghana. Informal sector pension coverage rises to 16.7%

Pension coverage among informal sector workers in Ghana increased from 13.2 per cent in 2024 to 16.7 per cent in 2025, the Financial Stability Review 2025 has revealed. The Review attributed the increase to intensified public education campaigns, improved enrolment strategies, and the introduction of flexible pension products tailored to self-employed workers. The report said the growth formed part of broader reforms aimed at strengthening the sustainability of Ghana’s three-tier pension system and expanding access to retirement savings opportunities. It said the...

May 21, 2026
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19May

Zimbabwe. NSSA informal sector pension rollout targets 3 million

THE National Social Security Authority is on the verge of a historic reform, integrating over three million informal sector workers into Zimbabwe’s social security framework, a move that would rank among the country’s most significant protection rollouts in recent years The planned informal sector social security scheme targets vendors, cross-border traders, self-employed workers, small-scale traders and other workers currently excluded from formal pension systems. NSSA general manager Dr Charles Shava said the scheme was nearing completion as the authority moved to...

May 19, 2026
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18May

Jamaica. Pension regulator says micro-pension plan unworkable for informal sector

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) has ruled out a state-administered micro-pension scheme for the more than one million workers currently without retirement coverage. A micro-pension is a retirement savings product designed for low-income and informally employed workers, allowing sporadic or irregular contributions as low as $400. "It was determined that a micro-pensions product would not be feasible for Jamaica," an FSC consultation paper stated. "However, it was stressed that the  Approved Retirement Schemes (ARS) framework could be strengthened for greater accessibility...

May 18, 2026
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08May

Socio-economic Status of Informal Sector Business Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

By Dr. Nazrul Islam Informal sector business is a highly growing sector of Bangladesh which is defined as the businesses that are neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government or authority . A large number of small and medium enterprises (SME) fall into this category of the informal sector of businesses. The major driving forces behind the growth of informal sector businesses in Bangladesh are the rise in household demands fir goods and services manufactured and supplied by...

May 8, 2026
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08May

Moldova. Six out of ten agricultural workers work informally and are deprived of social protection

He said about six out of ten people employed in agriculture work without official registration, without labor contracts and without social protection, being paid for temporary work such as harvesting or tending crops. “By comparison, the rate in non-agricultural sectors is six times lower – one in ten. What is informal employment? These are people who accept day jobs because they need money for bread, medicine, bills or debts at the store. More often than not, they don’t even ask...

May 8, 2026
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04May

The Wage Illusion: Pakistan’s Informal Economy and the Crisis of Shared Prosperity

On the first of May, the world does more than commemorate labour; it measures the distance between economic growth and those who actually produce it. The origins of this day lie in the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where a demand as basic as an eight-hour workday was met with violence, yet ultimately reshaped global labour standards. Nearly 140 years later, that legacy exists alongside a global economy in which, according to the International Labour Organization (ILOSTAT, 2023), over 60%...

May 4, 2026
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April 2026
30Apr

Nigeria: CPs – Pencom Sustains Push for States, Others

The National Pension Commission has sustained the drive for states, local governments and employers in formal sector to fully embrace the Contributory Pension Scheme, writes Ebere Nwoji One of the major headaches of the present leadership of the pension sector regulatory authority, the National Pension Commission (PenCom), is how to succeed in making every Nigerian with genuine means of livelihood enrol into the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). The commission said the overall aim is to ensure that at advanced age, every...

April 30, 2026
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