Making social security portable: from rights to digital delivery

This event took place on October 15, 2026. You can watch the recordings and download the presentation below.

The original recording is available in English. Recordings of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese interpretations are available below.

Overview

This was the twenty-fourth webinar in the “Talking interoperability” dialogue series convened by the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI). The series facilitates in-depth technical conversations on designing for interoperability in the social protection sector, bringing together digital social protection and technology experts from government agencies, software vendors, system integrators and international organisations.

The webinar introduced participants to the key concepts, implementation challenges and practical lessons surrounding portability in different country contexts. It showcased experiences from ongoing ILO and ISSA country-level work with relevant standards, guidance and emerging approaches to international data exchange.

An EU perspective illustrated how digital information exchange can operate at scale, highlighting both the achievements of the European system and the lessons learned from its development.

Specifically, participants were able to:

• understand portability and its different pathways /stages.
• understand the conditions for portability (legal, institutional)
• understand how portability can be digitalized (procedures, data, responsibilities, interoperability)
• identify practical options for countries starting the process today (emerging standards, reusable tools, learnings from the EU experience).

Speakers

Pekka Repo, Business consultant to the European Commission (DG EMPL)

Raul Ruggia-Frick, Director, Social Security Development Branch, ISSA

Francisco Delgado Azuara, ex IT management unit in the Spanish National Institute for Social Security and ex standing member of the Technical Commission for EESSI

Moderator

Veronika Wodsak, Social Protection Specialist, ILO