Art Appraisal Blog

Social Protection in Bangladesh began in the 1970’s and has been evolving ever since. This in-depth World Bank report examines the current state of social protection in Bangladesh, including efforts to digitize payments, and recommendations for future improvements through digitization.

This report from the Asian Development Bank details the Philippines’ social protection response to COVID-19. It explores the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s efforts to distribute payments, the challenges it encountered, and the role of digital technologies in overcoming them.

The Philippines’ Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a conditional cash transfer program that aims to provide short-term poverty alleviation for poor households. As the program grew quickly and in volume and geography, so did the challenges faced in getting payments quickly and efficiently to recipients. This case study examines the design and implementation of the 4Ps program, explains the experiences of stakeholders and presents lessons learned.

Digital payments offer a fast and transparent way to distribute cash aid to households that have been economically hard hit by the pandemic. In the Philippines, researchers conducted a survey to learn about the experience of recipients of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), an emergency cash transfer program implemented by the government. Results revealed that recipients were highly satisfied with their withdrawal experience of digital cash transfers, however, account awareness...

This SPACE paper explores how decentralization, localization, and adaptive social protection relate to each other conceptually. In doing so, it touches on relevant subjects such as the growing use of integrated information systems, data collection, and remote enrollment, among others.

This case study by the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) examines Togo’s Novissi program, focusing on the collaborative role of the non-profit GiveDirectly. It includes discussions of remote targeting and data responsibility.

This Better Than Cash Alliance report details principles for building responsible digital payment systems. An update to BTCA’s 2016 publication, the report emphasizes the importance of consumer trust driven by reliability, interoperability between services, and conscious efforts to include marginalized communities, particularly women.

In March 2020, a team of researchers began providing technical assistance to the Government of Togo to help guide their humanitarian response to the COVID-19 crisis. This report provides a short, non-technical summary of those efforts through the year 2020.

In April 2020, Togo launched Novissi, a fully digital unconditional cash transfer program to assist informal workers whose livelihoods were upended by the coronavirus pandemic. This case study details the program’s design process and implementation, highlighting lessons learned on the use of mobile money to support fully digital social assistance.

Colombia's Ingreso Solidario COVID-19 cash transfer program increased eligible households’ probability of maintaining an income source during the pandemic and did not disincentivize labor market participation.