ISSA Award goes to IPS-CNPS of Côte d’Ivoire

13 October 2021

The Social Insurance Institute - National Social Insurance Fund (IPS-CNPS) of Côte d'Ivoire won the ISSA Good Practice Award for Africa 2020 for developing an app for employers' social security contributions. The award was announced during the Virtual Social Security Forum for Africa, which took place from 5-7 October 2021.

The e-Cotisations, or e-Contributions, app was developed and rolled out as part of the new e-CNPS web platform, and has contributed to the automation of employers social security contribution declarations. The tool allows an employer to declare social security contributions and, at the same time, displays each worker's name and remuneration for which contributions are paid.

"The IPS-CNPS has demonstrated the value of digital transformation of social security services, and has truly merited the ISSA Good Practice Award for Africa. At the same time, I would like to congratulate all our African members for their powerful innovations and their implementation of new excellent solutions" said Marcelo Abi-Ramia Caetano, ISSA Secretary General.

The winner was among 97 entries from 36 organizations in 27 countries in the ISSA Good Practice Award for Africa 2020 competition. The plan was originally to announce the winner at the Regional Social Security Forum for Africa last year, but the event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the winner was announced during the Virtual Social Security Forum for Africa.

The e-Cotisations app enables employers to submit contributions through an innovative online system. It offers contributors an automated tool facilitates contribution calculations for each employee and reduces the risks of error.

Aligned to the ISSA Guidelines on Contribution Collection and Compliance, and the ISSA Guidelines on Information and Communication Technology, it responds to the following requirements:

• maximising the Institute's resources thanks to the automation and rationalization of the collection processes;
• improving the quality of service by facilitating procedures to contributors and offering a digital channel;
• optimizing the management of insured persons' accounts by billing their individual contributions ;
• providing reliable information to the IPS-CNPS for calculating social benefits.

It therefore represents notable progress in the process of improving contributors' compliance levels and respond to the challenge of undeclared work.

Importantly, to increase adoption, before the roll-out the IPS-CNPS carried-out a participatory approach by meeting the federations and employers' organizations to present the product and collect their feedback. After the roll-out, the IPS-CNPS developed a communication campaign to encourage employers to use the tool. Furthermore, IPS-CNPS supported employers training on the tool.

The results have been promising. By 31 December 2019, more than 95 per cent of large companies and 55 per cent of small and medium-ones had activated their e-Cotisations accounts. Six months later, more than 40 per cent of the overall total of social security contributions were submitted online. By September 2021, it was expected that more than 90 per cent of employers submit their contributions online.

The triennial ISSA Good Practice Award for Africa is the most important award dedicated to the outstanding work of social security institutions in the region. All entries are available to ISSA members in the ISSA Database of Good Practices, which consists of more than 1000 good practices in social security, including 282 from Africa.

To see the full results of the ISSA Good Practice Award for Africa 2020 competition, please consult this brochure.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.