CELEBRATING THE 2023 PENSIONS AWARENESS WEEK

The Public Service Pensions Fund (PSPF) has joined other Pension Industry players in the Country in commemorating the 2023 Pensions Awareness Week (PAW) which will run from 6th to 10th November 2023 under the theme Plan your money, Plant your future.

The Pensions Awareness Week is a literacy campaign aimed at raising awareness on the importance of saving for retirement through a pension and helping pension scheme members to value and understand their pension and plan for their retirement.

Further, the Pensions Awareness Week (PAW) creates a platform for stakeholders in the Pensions Industry such as Pension Service providers, Businesses, Employers, the Regulator and the Government to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the Zambian Pension System.

The campaign will among others seek to; raise the profile of pensions as a financial product, make pension scheme members to directly talk about pensions and making plans for their retirement, engage employers and associations on benefits of occupational pensions and indirectly engage over 1 million people using social and mainstream media.

Key messages for the Pensions Awareness Week will include pillars of social security in Zambia, Importance of saving for retirement, Role of public and private occupation pension schemes, Role of pensions in economic development and Benefits of public and private occupational pension schemes to employers and employees.

Other key messages are types of pension schemes (Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution and Hybrid schemes), Governance of pension schemes, Roles and eligibility of Trustees, Rights and obligations of pension scheme members and Challenges and opportunities in the pensions industry in Zambia.

Participants in the Pensions Awareness Week will use the theme Plan your money, plant your future, to develop activities on sustainability, sustainable finance and, more broadly, on the importance of long-term social, economic and financial sustainability considerations in financial decisions.

The theme which is a build-up on the Financial Literacy Week/ Global Money Week theme prompts citizens to be forward-looking and to have a broad view on the environment and society in their financial decisions.

The Public Service Pensions Fund (PSPF) will use the five-day national event to explain the role of the Fund in Zambia’s Pension industry and showcase its pension services to the public and how they benefit the members.

In 2022, PSPF hosted pupils from the Kamwala Secondary School for an educational tour on 9th November as part of the Pensions Awareness Week Activities.