ISSA holds its 200th webinar

16 May 2024

In four years, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) has achieved a milestone by organizing its 200th webinar. The webinars have engaged hundreds of organizations and speakers worldwide, along with tens of thousands of participants. Today, these webinars represent a wealth of knowledge and resources that are freely available to ISSA members.

The first webinars were organized in April 2020, following the COVID-19 outbreak. It started with a webinar series looking at social security responses to the pandemic. The webinars were an immediate success, with institutions looking for solutions both in terms of how to organize their work and how to best support social security beneficiaries and society during the crisis.

Over 38,000 participants have registered for webinars, representing around 190 participants from 51 different institutions in 41 countries per webinar. The webinars gave the opportunity for many more staff of member institutions to attend ISSA events, coming from all layers of the organizations and with the same access whether it's from headquarters, a regional branch or technical department.

Thousands of new accounts were created on the ISSA website due to the webinars, which means that the ISSA today reaches a much broader audience than before. When in-person events started again 2022, the webinars continued and with the same level of interest.

Building on the contributions of members and partner organizations

The webinars build on the knowledge, experiences and good practices of member institutions, and also international and regional organizations, academia and research communities, non-governmental organizations, experts and professionals are invited to share their expertise.

An impressive 565 different persons have contributed as speakers and moderators, coming from 265 organizations in 111 countries, and counting 900 appearances in all. This demonstrates the wide array of knowledge and experiences that is shared through the webinars.

Many webinars have also been organized in cooperation with ISSA Technical Commissions or regional structures to address topics of specific concern and interest for them, while reaching out to a wider audience.

Major topics and series

The webinars are an excellent way to gain knowledge and insights, and they cover a wide variety of topics from the different branches and various aspects of managing social security. One of the key features of webinars is that they provide the opportunity to quickly respond to the interests of ISSA members, and to cover niche topics that there may not be room for in traditional onsite events.

Some major topical clusters are governance and administration, information and communication technology (ICT), health, and shocks and extreme events. The ISSA also runs webinar series on priority topics that are identified in cooperation with member institutions. When it comes to ICT for example, the ISSA has series on digital inclusion and artificial intelligence. Linked to health, there are series on long-term care and on rehabilitation. On occupational safety and health (OSH), the Special Commission on Prevention is runs the series "Let's talk about OSH". Some other key topics are service quality, extension of coverage, and demographic change with a focus on ageing populations.

All the webinars are searchable by topic and other facets on the ISSA website, which gives access to presentations, documents and video recordings of each webinar. The knowledge, experiences and good practices from webinars also feed into the broader knowledge production of the ISSA, including analysis articles and publications, the ISSA Guidelines, and planning new events and activities.

What is the future?

The webinars are here to stay. What started as an initiative to serve ISSA member institutions quickly during a critical situation when COVID-19 broke out, has become a fundamental pillar for exchanging and building knowledge whilst sharing experiences. The ISSA will continue to organize webinars to serve the needs of its members over the coming years.