Publication: The Role of Digital in the COVID-19 Social Assistance Response
Date
2022
ISSN
Published
2022
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in
vast numbers of people in need of social assistance, many of
whom were not previously covered by social safety nets. To
meet this unprecedented level of need, governments quickly
scaled social assistance reaching over 1.7 billion people in
low- and middle income countries. Scaling up social
assistance presented two separate but related challenges:
first, adapting targeting and registration to reach
individuals not commonly included in social assistance
databases, such as urban informal workers, and second, how
to deliver government to person (G2P) payments safely and
securely in the context of the pandemic. Countries that
could leverage pre-pandemic investments in digital public
infrastructure (DPI)— identification (ID), payments and
trusted data sharing—were better able to implement
COVID-response social assistance programs and reach more
beneficiaries. This paper, analyzes the role of these DPIs,
also called digital stack, in the social protection response
to COVID by analyzing data on howCOVID-response social
assistance programs register red and made payments to
beneficiaries across178 programs across 85 countries. The
analysis shows how these digital systems and infrastructure
allowed for innovative targeting, registration, and payment
approaches that covered a significantportion of the
population. This paper uses administrative data on G2P
registration and payment methods combined with anecdotal
evidence from country case studies to show how pre-pandemic
investments in digital databases, digital ID, and digital
payments impacted countries’ abilities to reach new
beneficiaries and deliver payments safely in the context of
the pandemic response. It further details workaround
solutions implemented by countries without these assets and
infrastructure in place, and how some countries were able to
expand their digital infrastructure even amidst the urgency
of the crisis response. The analysis concludes with
suggestions as to the impact that the social assistance
response to COVID-19 can have on the future of social
protection payments, in terms of inspiring investments in
building and strengthening G2P ecosystems globally.
Citation
“World Bank. 2022. The Role of Digital in the COVID-19 Social Assistance Response. © Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/38104 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”