“Family compensation funds according to the Colombian model, we are service platforms for the social welfare of the working population and their families.” This is how the president of the Asocajas Board of Directors, Ernesto Herrera Díaz-Granados, summarizes the importance of this figure in the construction of society and employment.
Herrera highlighted that the family subsidy is essential for the materialization of decent work and explained that this is achieved because “it redistributes resources in society, benefiting the worker and his family; it empowers the business community and fosters an environment of understanding and joint work between employer-employee; and helps to meet the Sustainable Development Goals in terms of eliminating and reducing poverty”.
On this last point, he specified that the monetary quota helps households to cross and move away from the poverty line, since by being beneficiaries of this subsidy, the risk of poverty is reduced by 11%.
Herrera Díaz-Granados pointed out that the Family Compensation Funds are the only institutions within the social protection system that actively participate in the provision and financing of other services of said system.
“This is what happens in the field of health, both from their role as insurers and providers, in the face of which the problems that a few Savings Banks have had cannot be generalized to the entire Family Subsidy System. The Savings Banks insure more than 8.7 million people in the Subsidized Regime and more than 9.8 million in the Contributive Regime, which corresponds to a figure close to 30% of the Colombian population”, he concluded.
