The Social Security System (SSS) is tasked to provide a social safety net to workers in the private sector, the self-employed and the informal sector.

Cognizant of the informal sector's employment generation and economic contribution capacities, the SSS deemed it necessary to extend coverage to their workers. But doing so requires creative approaches to reaching out to the informal sector: approaches that recognize the irregularity of their incomes and differences in the nature of their businesses; those requiring partnerships with organized groups to identify shared responsibilities; and approaches allowing "wholesale" social security coverage instead of SSS going after individual workers.

In this report, the SSS shares the experiences of programmes recently implemented: 1) AlkanSSSya Programme for the Self-Employed in the Services Sector; 2) Servicing and/or Collecting Partner Agent Arrangement for Cooperatives and Micro-finance Institutions; 3) Social Security Subsidy Programme; 4) Coverage for Government Job Order/Contractual Workers; and 5) MuniSSSipyo-Collect Programme for Unbanked Areas.

The SSS is building its success in helping members of this vulnerable sector get the social protection they deserve, at an amount that is within their reach.