Making Pension Savings Easy and Efficient for Informal Sector Workers : Learning from Kenya's Haba Haba Pilot

Haba Haba, which means "bit by bit" in Swahili, is a voluntary pension scheme in Kenya for workers in informal employment and promises to be a scheme through which they can slowly but surely save for their old age. The scheme, administered by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) was launched as a pilot in 2019. Haba Haba allows for easy, anytime, anywhere savings by informal economy workers. Registration, contributions, and access can be handled via mobile phone by dialing USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) *303# or by contacting the NSSF via WhatsApp. The registration process only requires an individual's first and last names, and government identification (ID) number. Contributions can be paid in person at NSSF offices or through the mobile money platform M-Pesa