Art Appraisal Blog

This report seeks to answer the question: Can G2P payments provide an on-ramp to financial inclusion? It does so by focusing on the confluence of three different movements to improve the economic well-being of low-income individuals and households in developing countries: financial inclusion; digital financial services; and government-to-person payments (G2P payments). Its findings suggest that currently there is little indication that G2P payments do result in increased financial inclusion through...

Digital finance has expanded opportunities for millions of women across the globe, yet there remains much work to do to achieve gender equality in financial services. This report discusses policies for achieving equal financial inclusion, including the role of digital G2P.

During the past decade, women’s economic and financial inclusion has become an increasing priority for governments and companies, driven by evidence that its benefits range from increased agricultural output, to greater business resilience, customer retention, and GDP growth. Despite this evidence, the unfortunate truth is that women throughout the world lack access to the basic tools necessary for digital financial inclusion. This report provides 10 steps to help remedy the...

To provide an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and foster an appropriate environment for economic recovery, LAC governments need to reach a holistic, up-to-date understanding of the resources available to them. Adopting a treasury single account (TSA) and digitizing revenue collection may help achieve these objectives.This study shows that improving treasury management in LAC by implementing TSAs and digitizing revenue collection and payments could generate potential annual savings of...

This note published by the World Bank presents four priorities to build stronger safety nets that help address gender inequality. 1) Maintain and extend coverage among vulnerable groups, prioritizing women and taking the specific needs of women into account. 2) Invest in adaptive delivery systems that recognize women and girls’ specific vulnerabilities. 3) Leverage digital technologies to reach and empower women in safety net programs. 4) Invest in cash plus...

This paper attempts to analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of the various social protection delivery mechanisms with reference to climate resilience, and also examines the sufficiency of social protection finance in meeting climate resilience and sustainable development outcomes. In doing so, the paper discusses India’s JAM trinity in the context of a potential universal basic income.

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.