Art Appraisal Blog

Adaptive social protection (ASP) is a focus area within the larger social protection sector, which has emerged in response to the need to build resilience of the poor and vulnerable to covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflicts, and forced displacement. This paper details a stress test tool for assessing the adaptiveness social protection systems, incorporating digital payment and data systems as factors.

This paper systematizes the social protection innovations implemented in response to the COVID-19 crisis, which can be leveraged to build more inclusive and sustainable SP systems in the medium and long term. In this context, the report discusses digital payment systems, including bank transfers, mobile money, and the role of local CICO agents.

This working paper seeks to provide an overview of dominant perspectives, policies and operational and regulatory approaches that are shaping existing initiatives to digitise social protection programmes across the Global South. It focuses on Government–to–person (G2P) transfers and reviews both grey and academic literature and addresses two specific questions: To what extent do the transformations brought about by the digitisation of G2P programmes contribute to facilitating poor and vulnerable people’s...

Article 5 of 5: Over the course of 2020, MicroSave Consulting conducted two nationally representative telephonic surveys in India examining the government’s effectiveness in distributing a collection of social protection benefits broadly known as the PMGKY that were established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report explores the results regarding India’s Direct Benefit Transfer system and offers policy recommendations.

Article 4 of 5: Over the course of 2020, MicroSave Consulting conducted two nationally representative telephonic surveys in India examining the government’s effectiveness in distributing a collection of social protection benefits broadly known as the PMGKY that were established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report explores the results regarding the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and offers policy recommendations.

Article 3 of 5: Over the course of 2020, MicroSave Consulting conducted two nationally representative telephonic surveys in India examining the government’s effectiveness in distributing a collection of social protection benefits broadly known as the PMGKY that were established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report explores the results regarding the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana and offers policy recommendations.

Article 2 of 5: Over the course of 2020, MicroSave Consulting conducted two nationally representative telephonic surveys in India examining the government’s effectiveness in distributing a collection of social protection benefits broadly known as the PMGKY that were established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report explores the results regarding India’s Public Distribution System and offers policy recommendations.

Article 1 of 5: Over the course of 2020, MicroSave Consulting conducted two nationally representative telephonic surveys in India examining the government’s effectiveness in distributing a collection of social protection benefits broadly known as the PMGKY that were established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report details the study’s methodology and sample characteristics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation across the world. This post by CSIS explores the advantages and risks in the shift to digital payments, outlines principles for inclusive digital payments systems, and briefly summarizes the experiences of Kenya and Mexico.

M-PESA allows users to send and receive money through SMS messages. This IPA summary outlines one of the first studies examining the long-term effect access to M-PESA has on individuals, finding that in areas where M-PESA became more accessible, women were more likely to switch from farming to business occupations and to save more. It estimates that 185,000 women changed occupations, and 194,000 households, primarily female-headed households, were lifted above...