As part of Georgia’s COVID-19 Anti-Crisis Plan, the Government made a budgetary allocation of USD31 million towards social protection. These measures included the adaptation of the Targeted Social Assistance (TSA) scheme as well as the introduction of new temporary measures to support formal and informal workers.
To protect against the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Thai Government introduced broad social protection measures, valued at nearly USD12 billion. The first measure was the Rao Mai Ting Gun or “No One Left Behind”, which provided a monthly transfer of 5,000 THB per person to informal or self-employed workers outside of agriculture for three months. The second measure was similar and also targeted farmers.
The National Social Protection Council in Cambodia (NSPC), the inter-ministerial coordination structure for social protection, and the IDPoor, the country’s social registry, collaborated for the implementation of the COVID-19 emergency cash transfer. While the IDPoor provided a platform for rapidly identifying and reaching new beneficiaries, NSPC monitored and coordinated the process across ministries and administrative levels.
Aadhaar, India’s biometrically-enabled foundational ID, serves three major functions of existing social protection delivery: (i) avoid duplication and identity fraud as well as improved coordination across schemes; (ii) enable electronic payments into correct beneficiary accounts; and (iii) biometric authentication at the point of service delivery.
The National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) in Pakistan was used to facilitate the delivery of non-contributory schemes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NSER is used for enrolling beneficiaries into various schemes under Pakistan’s multi-sectoral multi-stakeholder poverty reduction strategy, Ehsaas, along with the biometrically enabled Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC). With a coverage of 85 per cent and seamless interoperability with the CNIC, the NSER formed a strategic pillar for shock-related expansions of the social protection system.1
The Data Terpadu Kesejahteran Sosial (DTKS) is Indonesia’s social registry that was used for delivering non-contributory social protection during the COVID-19 crisis. It aims to cover of the poorest 40 per cent of the population through an on-demand approach. Integrated with the National ID system, the DTKS was strategically placed to help reach the “new poor” during the pandemic.
The Social Protection system in Mongolia is embedded in the 2012 Law on Social Welfare (currently being revised) and offers 14 types of social assistance programmes (cash transfers or services) to vulnerable groups such as the elderly, persons with disabilities, orphans, children at risk, etc, as well as a range of social services. Targeting for these programmes is established on the basis of the country’s social registry: the Integrated Household Information Database (IHID).
In Georgia, access to social programmes is integrated via an on-demand registration process, enabling potential beneficiaries to apply at any time (when in need) for a wide variety of social protection programmes as well as social worker support, including social and labour services. Continuous access is facilitated by the extensive network of local and regional “Single Window” Offices (functioning as so called ‘one stop shops’) operated by the Social Services Agency (SSA) throughout the country, on behalf of the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Assistance (MoLHSA).
In Cambodia, coordination within the social protection sector is embedded within the National Social Protection Policy Framework 2016-2025, driven by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MoEF), widely debated across all relevant Ministries, approved in 2017 by the Council of Ministers and issued by the Prime Minister – denoting extremely high policy ownership. The strength of the Framework lies in an accurate analysis of the challenges of the system to that date (fragmentation, lack of a sufficient legal framework, low coverage, etc), while proposing a clear vision for reform.
Fiji, an archipelago country in the South Pacific home to a population of 883,000, has introduced an e-payments system for its social assistance programmes as of 2011. The new system, which replaced paper voucher-based payments distributed via Department of Social Welfare (DSW) Offices, operates via savings-linked, flexible and no-fee bank accounts opened for approximately 22,000 welfare recipients across all programmes.
