It all started with a health awareness campaign organised by RBA along with the informal sector associations in one of the low resource settlement around Nairobi. In the course of the field activities it was established that none of the informal sector worker had any long-term savings for retirement. The perception amongst these workers was that pension is meant for people in formal employment only. 

After few months of due diligence; key stakeholders jointly realised that the perception was in fact the true reflection of what was on offer in the pension industry. All the existing pension schemes and policy in Kenya and Africa were targeted towards people from the formal employment sector. This led to the formation of first ever informal sector pension scheme in Africa. The incubation of this took 9 months and the MBAO pension scheme was formally registered on December 2009.

The MBAO secretariat was established as a permanent administrative office to govern, appoint and discharge all service providers. Other roles of MBAO secretariat included promotion, creating awareness and sensitization, amongst the informal sector workers; and has been pivotal in growing to the current state where it has attained global recognition. Initial members were drawn from the association memberships.

An awareness campaign was conducted with Retirement Benefit Authority of Kenya,  which got wide media attention both in Kenya as well as other neighboring countries. It was hailed as the pride of Kenya as MBAO was one of the first forerunners in informal sector pension across the world.

Mass media campaign was initiated with support from various stakeholders including the RBA and this lead to a spike in membership. Organizations and universities from across the world started researching on MBAO pension as a role model for micro pension scheme. Case Studies were being written about MBAO and were published in renowned journals & publications. 

MBAO scheme attracted attention from other African governments including South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, whereby they were trying to learn from the pension plan’s challenges and drivers for success. The govt. from all across were trying to replicate the pension scheme in their home countries. 

The MBAO team have been invited across the globe and they participated in learning and exchanging of best practices in social security schemes. This lead to many partners joining hands to deepen and widen the financial inclusivity. 

Values

Our core values are transparency, honesty, integrity,   accountability, efficiency, courtesy, low cost of operation and deliver value for our members and partners.