This thesis analyzes theoretically and empirically the feasibility to extend the pension scheme coverage to self employed and workers from informal sector in Rwanda. It starts with a literature review to understand the major concepts of pension and informal sector.

The study shows the structure and historical trends of informal sector employment in Rwanda and demonstrates the relationships between the size of informal sector and the coverage rate.

The paper explains some achievements in term of approaches which have contributed in improving the coverage rate and highlights the challenges faced by Rwanda pension system in extending coverage. It provides also the empirical evidence as international experiences in extending coverage, to show that reducing the coverage gap is feasible by adopting some strategies applied in various countries.

For better understanding and easy dissemination of these strategies, the latter were grouped in three categories, namely strategies based on selection of contributors in pension scheme, strategies based on relaxing traditional pension schemes for specific groups and strategies based on non-pension facilities and collection mechanisms of contributions.

Finally, the study gives a set of six feasible strategies to extend coverage to informal sector and self employed in Rwanda, with reference of international experiences and the supporting evidences from the surveys I did to moto taxi drivers as a group of informal sector workers and to RSSB staff. The feasible strategies were put in two categories, namely pension scheme designing strategies and administration strategies.

The study concludes with a recommendation, that the provided strategies should be translated in clear legal framework, and pension reform should be initiated with strong political will of the president of Republic for the success of the whole process starting by the designing of the pension system to the implementation. In this regard, a presidential commission for pension reform should be appointed by the President of the Republic to prepare an inclusive national pension act which will address all the challenges of the current pension system in general, and the non coverage of informal sector and self employed in particular.