The World Bank Group, has announced Naa Sika, a Ghanaian, as the first prize winner of "Mission Billion Challenge" with her micro-savings platform that enables informal sector workers to access digital wallets and fee-free savings accounts.
It said Tonti+, the second prize winner, from Benin, is a digitized informal savings group that enables motorcycle taxi drivers to pool savings and credit through daily contributions.

The Group noted that both solutions addressed ways to incentivize informal sector workers' enrollment and participation in social insurance programmes.
It said a panel of high-level judges selected the winners to receive cash prizes from the ID4D initiative and mentorship from Google Developers Experts.

The statement noted that honourable mentions went to Universal Social Protection Wallet, a solution from Kenya, and NaYa Limited, a solution from Cameroon.
It said the other finalists were: Micro Pensions for Retirement Resilience (Ghana), MiKashBoks (Sierra Leone), and Townpay (Senegal).winners of the Mission Billion Challenge "WURI West Africa Prize".

The Mission Billion Challenge is supported by the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) programme, which facilitates access to services through foundational identification (fID) platforms, and by the Identification for Development Initiative (ID4D).

The WURI programme aims to benefit 100 million people in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, and Togo, respective of nationality or legal status.

The statement said the Mission Billion Challenge "WURI West Africa Prize" powered by "MIT Solve" asked innovators how governments could more effectively facilitate social protection programmes that accounted for precarious, informal work across borders, based on regionally interoperable foundational identification platforms (fID).
It said 208 teams from 37 countries, mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa, proposed solutions to facilitate cross-border contributions to and payments from social insurance programmes, such as pensions and savings accounts.

"In Sub-Saharan Africa, informal sector workers often fall through the cracks of existing social protection programmes as they are often not eligible for social safety net benefits and social insurance programs provided for the formal sector. Informal workers represent 80 per cent of total employment, with nearly 90 per cent of them women," said Dena Ringold, the World Bank's Regional Director for Human Development in West and Central Africa.

"Being able to quickly scale up social protection programmes through flexible platforms and provide emergency support to informal workers, particularly during these unprecedented times, will help countries chart the path for a resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and help boost Africa's human capital outcomes over the longer term," she added.

The statement said the "WURI West Africa Prize" was also supported by the Rapid Social Response Programme (RSR) and Disruptive Technologies for Development (DT4D) initiative.

"Harnessing disruptive technologies to deliver social protection to informal sector workers who do not benefit from existing social safety nets, but who are vulnerable to falling into poverty, is an urgent development challenge," said Michal Rutkowski, World Bank Global Director for Social Protection and Jobs.

"The WURI West Africa Prize supports social insurance systems for the informal sector, that are built on top of foundational identification platforms and are interoperable with social registries, to build resilience to weather future shocks."

"The World Bank's Regional Integration programmes such as WURI are encouraging 'Made in Africa' technology and innovations for cross-border benefits and service delivery to advance human capital and financial inclusion outcomes in the region," said Deborah Wetzel, World Bank Director for Africa Regional Integration.

The WURI Programme is a $395.1 million 10-year International Development Association (IDA) operation supported by the Regional Integration Window to build foundational ID systems that are interoperable across Benin, Burkina Faso, Co?te d'Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, and Togo.
The Programme will cover 100 million people to help achieve human development and financial inclusion goals.

The Programme furthers the World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, and directly supports the ECOWAS regional strategy 2019-2023, which aims to raise the living standards of the populations in its member countries.