Building Social Protection Floors for All

The ILO’s Global Flagship Programme on Building Social Protection Floors for All aims to support the ILO member States in developing sustainable social protection systems, including floors, to contribute to reaching universal social protection in line with ILO standards and to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Agenda.

In Rwanda, the National Strategy for Transformation (2018-2024) reaffirms the central role of social protection in eradicating poverty and enhancing the standard of living of Rwandans. The sector is further guided by the National Social Security Policy (2009) and the National Social Protection Policy (2020 – 2024). The national social protection system includes contributory and non-contributory schemes. The Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) - established in 2010 provides six schemes: (1) pension scheme; (2) occupational hazards scheme; (3) maternity leave scheme; (4) medical scheme; (5) community-based health insurance scheme (CBHI) and (6) EjoHeza, a long-term saving scheme with membership available to the whole population. Several non-contributory programmes aim at covering the most vulnerable. Established in 2008, the Umurenge Programme (VUP) is Rwanda’s flagship social protection programme. The VUP provides direct support to extremely poor and labour constrained households but providing adequate coverage to all households in need remains a major challenge. 

While social health coverage reaches over 85% of the population (13,4 million), coverage of other schemes remains low. RSSB’s contributory schemes reach only formal workers accounting for less than 10% of the population. Launched in 2018, EjoHeza increased its membership reaching over 2,710,000 subscribers potentially providing protection to additional population groups including informal workers. However, to be effective as a mechanism against poverty in old age, the number of subscribers as well as the amounts saved will need to be increased while developing strategies to expand social insurance to larger segments of the informal economy remains essential.

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While from a legal perspective, all workers, independently of their status or contract are required to be registered and to contribute to the social security schemes, persons with informal employment at their main job accounted for 87% of total employment in 2022.

In Rwanda, the ILO Global Flagship Programme on Building Social Protection Floors for All is funded by the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg and supports ILO constituents and partners to respond to those challenges. The programme will support strengthening and extending social protection schemes in line with the Social Protection Floors Recommendation 202 and the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention 102.