National Provident Funds: The Challenge of Harmonizing Their Social Security, Social and Economic Objectives

This paper examines the national provident funds (NPFs) that operate in 23 developing countries which seek to provide their members with basic social security protection by means of compulsory savings (see Appendix). It explores how the juxtaposition of economic, social and social security objectives has made NPFs generally resilient to fundamental change and has, in some instances, resulted in the evolution of a social security hybrid—neither a pure compulsory savings scheme nor a social insurance system.