Our strategy · International engagements and partnerships
06Building new pathways for growth through trusted partnerships, greater awareness and practical insight, connecting more communities to social security and making saving part of everyday economic life.
Partnerships for growth
“Reaching the next generation of NSSF members requires us to think differently about growth – where we find it, who we build with, and how we create lasting participation in social security.”
The past year marked an important chapter for Enterprise and Growth. Following the consolidation of the function, our focus was not simply on bringing teams together, but on establishing a different approach to growth – one capable of taking NSSF into markets, communities, and livelihood ecosystems that traditional approaches have not always reached.
In many ways, this was a year of breaking new ground.
We entered new sectors, tested new partnerships, and challenged ourselves to better understand the realities of people who live and earn outside traditional employment structures. From agriculture and transport to trade, beauty and personal care, education, telecommunications, faith-based communities, and government ecosystems, we have begun building new pathways through which social security can become part of everyday economic life.
Through this journey, our growth philosophy has become increasingly clear: partnership led, awareness driven, and intelligence enabled.
Partnerships sit at the heart of how we intend to scale. The opportunity is not simply to have more partners, but to work with organisations that give us access to established communities, distribution networks, platforms, and trusted relationships.
Over the past year, we have worked across government, telecommunications, education, development institutions, faith-based organisations, and the private sector, while opening pathways into sectors such as agriculture, transport, trade, and other informal and non-formal livelihoods.
These experiences have reinforced an important principle: the right partnership does more than provide reach – it can unlock an entire ecosystem.
Our ambition is therefore to move from individual engagements towards deeper partnerships where social security can be embedded within the platforms, networks, and economic activities through which people already work, transact, learn, and organise. This is how we see scale; not by attempting to reach every Ugandan on our own, but by building with those who already reach them.
For many of the markets we are entering, social security has historically felt distant from the realities of everyday earning. Building awareness must therefore go beyond telling people about NSSF. It must help people understand why saving matters, how it fits into their lives and how even small, consistent actions can strengthen their financial future.
This has required us to meet people differently (in their workplaces, communities, markets, associations, learning institutions, and livelihood networks) and to listen as much as we communicate. What we are learning is already shaping how we design for these members.
The reduction of the minimum Smartlife Voluntary Savings contribution from UGX 5,000 to UGX 500 in May 2026 was one such response. It recognised that income patterns vary significantly and that propositions designed for people earning regular salaries may not always work for a farmer earning seasonally, a trader earning daily or a young entrepreneur building a business.
It reflects an important shift for us: designing social security around people's realities rather than expecting people to adapt to ours.
As we have entered new markets, one lesson has become increasingly important: reach is different from growth. Growth requires us to understand what happens after someone encounters NSSF. What encourages them to participate? What prevents them from doing so? What drives continued saving? And where are we losing people along the way?
This is where intelligence becomes critical. Our next phase will increasingly use data, customer insights, and learning from the field to identify high-potential markets, understand different member behaviours, sharpen our propositions, and determine which partnerships and interventions have the greatest potential to scale.
It also means becoming faster at translating what we learn into action – testing, iterating, and adapting our approaches as member behaviour and market realities become clearer.
The objective is not simply to generate more activity. It is to become increasingly precise about where growth will come from and what will sustain it.
Our first year together has given Enterprise and Growth the opportunity to build, test and learn. We have opened doors into sectors and communities that represent important frontiers for NSSF’s future growth. We have begun building a broader partnership ecosystem, tested new approaches to livelihoods and financial inclusion, and gained a deeper understanding of what it will take to serve people whose income and working lives look very different from those of the traditional salaried member.
The next chapter is about turning that foundation into scale. We will deepen partnerships that can unlock entire ecosystems, build awareness that translates into meaningful participation, strengthen propositions around the realities of different markets, and use intelligence more deliberately to identify and pursue the opportunities with the greatest potential.
We will also continue exploring the connection between livelihoods and social security, recognising that extending coverage sustainably requires us to understand not only people’s willingness to save, but also their capacity to do so. As NSSF pursues its Vision 2035 ambition of extending social security coverage to 15 million Ugandans, the opportunity before Enterprise and Growth is significant.
We have broken new ground. Now our focus is to turn what we have learned into scalable pathways that make social security relevant, accessible, and sustainable for millions more Ugandans.
NSSF Integrated Report 2026
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