Informal Social Security In Relation To Regional Development In Guanda

The purpose for which this research was carried out was to examine the informal social security in relation to regional development. This was guided by specific objectives including; examining informal social security schemes that exist in Uganda's security system, to examine how the informal social security schemes have been organized and in what way are they effective, to examine how informal social security schemes have been strengthened and extended to cover more groups of people, and to examine the relationship between informal social security and regional development.The research employed descriptive research design with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The sample size was 240 respondents derived from the study population. The research used both primary and secondary data. Basing on the report, the informal social security systems have always existed in Africa. However, the content and form have been changing over the years as a result of urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation. However despite this, there is a common understanding of what informal social security seeks to achieve and the activities undertaken to achieve this.The research found out that that informal social security systems remain a major source of social protection for the majority of the people, particularly informal workers. Informal social security systems will continue to exist alongside formal social security systems because of the failure of formal social security systems to reach informal workers. It is, however, acknowledged that informal social security systems are not the preferred source of social protection as they are seen as providing inadequate social protection. The extended family system has continued to weaken because of urbanization and globalization. As a result, it is no longer a reliable form of social protection. Secondly, because of poverty, the poor are not able to make substantial contributions to self-organised mutual aid arrangements and this undermines the capacity of the schemes to provide adequate social protection. These weaknesses notwithstanding, informal social security systems still contribute to the social protection of the poor.Based on the findings therefore the research recommends that there is need to strengthen the formal provision of social insurance to formal sector workers, through the new improved national social security system and also build on informal mechanisms for extending social protection to informal sector workers and others located beyond the reach of formal mechanisms.