4 October 1927: The International Conference of National Associations of Mutual Benefit Societies and of Sickness Insurance Funds is founded in Brussels during the first General Assembly, attended by 17 national institutions from nine European countries.
“The world unity which we desire to attain, to which we are so fervently dedicated, would be mere words if we did not have behind us all the living forces which exist in each country.”
“In doing this we shall be doing a work of peace in the best sense of the word.”
1936: The Association becomes the International Social Insurance Conference (known as CIMAS in its French acronym) and expands its admission criteria to include social insurance institutions responsible for administering disability, old age and survivors' insurance.
1938: The National Social Insurance Fund of Peru becomes the first non-European institution to join the CIMAS.
1944: The ILO adopts the Philadelphia Declaration, an historic document calling for the extension of social security measures and promoting systematic cooperation among social security entities internationally and regionally.
1947: A new Constitution is adopted at the 8th General Assembly in Geneva, opening membership to government-administered social security agencies.
“It [the CIMAS] has greatly contributed to the creation of a spirit of international co-operation among the agencies administering social insurance, free of the often inevitable barriers of politics.”
1947: Leo Wildmann (Austria) was elected ISSA Secretary General.
1948: Social security is included as a fundamental right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
