India receives International Social Security Association Award 2025

• The government of India received the ISSA Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Security 2025 for its groundbreaking efforts to extend social security on October 3. 

• Being the fifth recipient of this award since its inception, India joins the list of leading countries across the globe in the field of social protection coverage.

• The award was introduced by ISSA in 2013, when Brazil became the first recorded recipient, followed by China (2016), Rwanda (2019), and Iceland (2022).

• Receiving the award on behalf of the government, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya highlighted India’s historic expansion in social security coverage from 19 per cent in 2015 to 64.3 per cent in 2025, covering over 940 million citizens, as recognised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Significance of social security

• Social security is the protection that a society provides to individuals and households to ensure access to health care and to guarantee income security, particularly in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness, invalidity, work injury, maternity or loss of a breadwinner.

• Social security has a powerful impact at all levels of society. 

• It provides workers and their families with access to health care and with protection against loss of income, whether it is for short periods of unemployment or sickness or maternity or for a longer time due to invalidity or employment injury.

• It provides older people with income security in their retirement years. Children benefit from social security programmes designed to help their families cope with the cost of education. 

• For employers and enterprises, social security helps maintain stable labour relations and a productive workforce. 

• Social security can contribute to social cohesion and to a country’s overall growth and development by bolstering living standards, cushioning the effects of structural and technological change on people and thereby providing the basis for a more positive approach toward globalisation.

International Social Security Association (ISSA)

• The International Social Security Association (ISSA) was founded in 1927 under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

• It has over 320 member institutions from over 160 countries.

• It supports its member organisations to develop excellence in social security systems and policy throughout the world. 

• It is the world’s leading international organisation for social security organisations and government departments, and it aims to advance the social and economic conditions of people based on social justice. 

• The ISSA promotes excellence in social security through professional guidelines and capacity building, proposing innovative solutions, sharing knowledge and data, organising high-level regional and global events, and engaging with international partners.

• Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)