West African Social Protection Platform

Problem:  Due to the need of governments to sustain fiscal growth within West Africa and secure the economic future of her citizens at old age, there is a desire for government to expand the reach of the Pension and Insurance Schemes to the informal sector.

Solution: A technological driven platform capable of harmonizing all social sphere across the West African Region.

Expectation: To boost the financial inclusion and increase saving for future financial security of individuals in various societal classes. 

With the above initiative, we expect a mid and long increase in coverage across the West African Region.

The established problems associated with the low social protection coverage in the West African region which has been culminated by the high level of illiteracy, lack of financial inclusion and the continuous social vices escalated by an unsecured future for the young and old generations. 

In West Africa, approximately 60% of the population live on around US$1.25 a day. Similarly, the gap between the rich and the poor has continued to widen due to disparities between formal and informal sectors participation in social protection schemes. 

The above position has plunged around 220million West Africans below the poverty line as a result of the inability of the larger populace to access schemes capable of improving their standard of living.  

On the back of the above, the level of illiteracy, population explosion (especially in Nigeria), poor social system and lack of financial inclusion are some of the problems we seek to extinguish.

Our solution is expected to serve West Africans from various spheres of the society especially the semi-literate and non-literate. Similarly, the solution will improve their level of financial literacy and create opportunities for them to participate in social protection scheme by saving for retirement and transferring risks associated with negative occurrences to insurance companies through our targeted health, life and travel insurance products.   

Target population includes owners and operators of small and medium scale businesses who hardly get the opportunity to benefit from private or government social protection scheme. Additionally, our assessment revealed that people who fall into this category lack the knowledge of financial inclusion, technological and social protection schemes. Our initiative is expected to reduce the loop holes on the back of our consideration of various methods to capture individuals who might not be tech savvy or literate as expatiated in our write up.

Our solution aligns fittingly as it seeks to exterminate any jinx that might limit the overall participation and inclusion in our West African Social Protection Plan (WASPP). On account of this, our initiative is totally encompassing as it considers potential participants who might have low literacy or numeracy levels, non-access to internet facilities.

Most importantly, the features of our plan and initiative has been designed to be tied to the way of life of potential participants such as travel, communication, betting, investments, trading and  financial inclusion associated with business transactions. This proposition is expected to sustain and promote participation.

Our solution is innovative due to the unique business process and the quest to harmonize all our products into a single mobile application for easy acceptability and usability. 

Despite the current existence of the technology which will be used to power our proposed mobile application, we believe our business process is entirely new. 

The uniqueness of our solution is evident in the idea to partner different players in various sectors of economies across West Africa to create unique products associated with Pensions and Insurance Schemes which our teeming potential clients are poised to benefit from in the mid-term and long term.

We believe other providers of Pensions and Insurance products in West Africa haven’t found diverse ways to include/harmonize participants in cross all works of life through a tech driven approach while considering individuals who might not be tech savvy or those who might lack access to internet.

Despite our solution still being at the concept stage, we are confident in the usability and workability on the back of the existing technology which will be utilized such as Access Point Interface, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. 

The proposed solution is expected to create value in the pensions and insurance industries and increase the number of active contributors to the pensions and insurance schemes across the West African region.  
Similarly, creating a single platform for players and potential players in the target industries (pensions and insurance) is expected to unify the sectors and create teamwork and collaborations for growth amongst companies operation in the industry.

All the products proposed to be created by our partners will be hosted on the platform and registration for the scheme, opening of accounts or registration for the products (Pensions and Insurance related) created by our partners, remittances and withdrawals will be done on the platform in order to create a seamless process alignment. 

We will leverage on the existing platforms or our proposed partners of adverts and customer service.

Our theory of change is basically to carry every societal class along in order to strike a near balance for social protection across all systems and subsystems of the informal sector.

Immediately our solution is deployed, we expect to see a geometric increase Pensions and Insurance contributions within the first year, and  further reduce the impact of negative eventualities on participants who might use the insurance option. In the long term, poverty at old age and lack of good health care is expected to nosedive.

The above position is supported by the GDP of several economies in West Africa In recent time on the back of the implementation of palliative and social focused initiatives.

In addition, we seek to open a platform to small to medium business owners from every sector of the economy that have registered businesses in West Africa and operate WASPP Account. To start with, we would be concentrating on Tech Savvy customers under the Informal Sector. This includes graduates who are self-employed who are in Fashion Design, Cake Baking and Makeup etc.

The portal is designed to enable West African entrepreneurs migrate their businesses online and take advantage of the vast international and local sales opportunities within the e-commerce space.

With the introduction of WASPP Market Hub, WASPP has provided a platform that allows small and medium business owners create and maintain an online presence and expand their business frontiers to new markets and millions of buyers that are online.

On account of our quest to partner various players in several industries in West Africa, our solution is poised to deliver seamless service delivery to users of the products. Furthermore, our unique process flow can be adopted by other players who might not be our direct partners for better inclusion. This can be done by adopting our process flow into their already existing platforms.  

Our solution considers the way of life of people in the informal sector. To be specific, basic activities such as traveling, airtime recharge, and data subscription were considered as some of the catch points for remittance to the pensions and insurance schemes. The model for remittance will be automated as explained in our write up. On the back of this, our initiative is expected to build public service delivery

The incorporation into existing social protect programs will be seamless as a result of the use of existing technology such as Access Point Interface, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning amongst others. 

Similarly, the multilingual feature of our proposed mobile application tagged (the Virtual West African Social Protection Platform) which will be embedded with all major languages in West Africa will create a personalized and localized experience for usability and acceptance. 

In addition, our quest to partner recognized companies across various industries in west Africa will make it easy to penetrate the region.

Our solution interpolates due to the potential us of existing technologies such as Access Point Interface, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Our solution will be open for API integration with other systems after due consideration of security and credibility of other systems

With the Boom in the Telecommunication industry, most West Africans have access to a telephone. However, in a bid to leverage on the existing telecommunications market, WASPP seeks to leverage on this platform to tap into the up-reached sector of the economy. 

To keep this simple especially for potential clients that might be semi-literate or non-literate, if a clients chooses a pensions deductable data plan, a percentage of the airtime recharged will be automatically routed to the subscriber’s pensions account or insurance premium account.

In addition to the above, we will partner major telecommunication companies in West Africa to create USSD codes to aid remittance and payment transactions amongst our chain or partners and clients under WASPP.

Furthermore, In recent times, the world has seen a surge in the fortunes and popularity of betting companies in the world and West Africa.

Similarly, it was observed that majority of the individuals who patronize betting companies are amongst the lower class who operate small businesses in the informal sector.

In view of the above, our initiative will partner betting companies to give clients the opportunity to remit a percentage of their winnings or bet stake either as Pensions Remittance and or Insurance Premium.

Currently, in West Africa social protection is marked by a high degree of heterogeneity and low levels of coverage The formal social security systems in place only cover a tiny segment of the population and neglect the most vulnerable groups. Workers with coverage only represent a small minority and form part of privileged categories: civil servants, members of the military and certain private-sector workers. 

Upon implementation, all other workers (workers in the informal sector, rural workers, independent workers, etc.) not covered by formal social protection systems will be captured under this scheme as they are thus the most vulnerable to social risks and shocks

Our goal within the next 5 years is to systematically exposure up to 5 million people in west Africa to social protection schemes. 

To measure our performance within the next 5 years, we expect statistics to indicate the increase of social protection inclusion in the region. 

To achieve this, our solution will be carefully crafted to become part of the daily life of users in the uttermost part of west Africa.

With the above approach,  our target audience are expected to secure their future and that of their families without having to make conscious effort to do so.

In the next couple of years, we reckon the lack of support from economies within the region could hinder our short and long term growth trajectory. Other salient negative points include Financial limitations associated with sustainable funds for the initiative, political and legal risks associated with different financial, pensions and insurance laws in different countries within the region, cultural hindrances pertaining to the acceptability of our model and business processes. 

Additionally, we believe changes in Business trends caused by policy somersaults across different countries could have an adverse effect on our process flow in the long term.

To mitigate possibility of lack of support from different economies, we will leverage on the know how and strength of our potentials partners to gain competitive advantage across the region. Financial difficulty will be tackled through possible partnership grants from our potentials partners and support from tech philanthropist. 

To mitigate legal risks and difference in laws associated with various industries within the region, our initiative will be flexible enough align with laws guiding different countries in West Africa.

Our initiative will consider cultural differences, this is why our platform will be designed to be multilingual to eliminate language barrier.

Similarly, we believe our partnership with local businesses who already under the local culture will improve our acceptability.

Finally, all countries in the West African region are beginning to see the need to grow the region as a unit, on the back of this, we are are of the opinion that policies will be created to support the growth of our solution both in the short and long term.

1. Emeka Okafor – Team Lead, +234 (0) 806 718 4444, eokafor@interranetworks.com
2. Michael Oladisun Awoliyi – Team Member, +234 (0) 816-371-8922, awoliyioladisun@googlemail.com,
3. Alexander Abumdike Njoku – Team Member, +234 (0) 805-460-0371, abumdike_michael@yahoo.com

As a team, we are in a great position to know the desire of what the Informal Sector in West Africa need based on research, identified the gaps and the need to deliver a solution that best fits the peculiarity of each market, and to work closely with the informal market to deliver the right solution to the right people at the right time.

Interra Networks Ltd as they will be involved in providing technology support in showcasing the proof of Concept.

Our proposed Information Technology solution (a Mobile Application) will be create and tagged VIRTUAL WEST AFRICAN SOCIAL PROTECTION PLATFORM where all players will be allowed to open micro pensions account, insurance premium accounts (life, health and travel insurance), open bank accounts, purchase airtime and data plans, place bets with betting companies and subscribe for mutual funds created by our partner asset management companies for the purpose of our initiative. 

The informal sector covers a wide range of clients offering services which range from high end to the market women selling pepper at the various markets. These clients are openly excited by promotions/products, readily participating in such promotions.

Most Pension Fund Administrators would decide to generally sell a single “Micro-Pensions” product with one distinctive feature rather than to sell a product by way of “packages” with different bundles to attract all types of customers within that market. The product is modelled after the savings products offered by Banks and Micro-Finance Banks (MFBs) targeted at people in the informal sector. Using a proposed product name such as PensionSava (PSava), we would break the product further into 3 bundles /packages such as: Pension Start (P-Start) - For 60%,  Pension Wise (P-Wise) - For 80% and 

Pension MAX (P-Max)-For 100% (Please see Section 5 of our proposal for further details).

Our targets will be popular Asset Management Companies and investment banks with presence in more than one country in the West African region. The target asset management companies will be charged with creating unique products for customers who intent to key into the Pensions and Insurance Scheme across West Africa.  

For products created by Fund Managers, a percentage of their accrued returns will be automatically wired to their pensions account on a monthly or quarterly basis.

On the back of the above, citizens across West Africa can invest in the unique funds created by the asset management companies while a percentage of their returns can be automatically remitted as pensions or insurance premium in their home country within the West African region.  

Our targets will be popular Asset Management Companies and investment banks with presence in more than one country in the West African region. The target asset management companies will be charged with creating unique products for customers who intent to key into the Pensions and Insurance Scheme across West Africa.  

For products created by Fund Managers, a percentage of their accrued returns will be automatically wired to their pensions account on a monthly or quarterly basis.

On the back of the above, citizens across West Africa can invest in the unique funds created by the asset management companies while a percentage of their returns can be automatically remitted as pensions or insurance premium in their home country within the West African region.  

Our targets will be popular Asset Management Companies and investment banks with presence in more than one country in the West African region. The target asset management companies will be charged with creating unique products for customers who intent to key into the Pensions and Insurance Scheme across West Africa.  

For products created by Fund Managers, a percentage of their accrued returns will be automatically wired to their pensions account on a monthly or quarterly basis.

On the back of the above, citizens across West Africa can invest in the unique funds created by the asset management companies while a percentage of their returns can be automatically remitted as pensions or insurance premium in their home country within the West African region.  

Today, there are various pension and insurance schemes practiced at the local level within the West African Region, however, the challenge has been the acceptance of such a scheme by the Informal Sector and how secured the scheme is, especially looking at the failure of previous schemes that may have existed. Again, in most part of West Africa, there is a traditional saving contributions culture that many of these individuals have been participating in especially within the Local Markets, Religious Bodies, Village Communities (just to mention a few).

To this end, the proposal will identify:

• How the Pension and Insurance schemes are being practiced within West Africa
• Identify the various gaps that hinder the informal sector from participating in an organized pension and insurance scheme.
• The proposed solution to aid and encourage West Africans in the informal sector to embrace social protection schemes.
• The benefits of Social Protection in West Africa

Interra Netowrks will be providing technological support to deliver the proof of concept initiative.