Art Appraisal Blog

Many countries have launched unprecedented relief packages to cushion the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons from the COVID-19-related scale-up of social assistance can be harnessed by developing countries to rethink and strengthen the architecture of social protection systems in the future.

Given pre-existing gender gaps, there are concerns about exclusion for many of the social assistance programs being rolled out around the world in response to COVID-19. Social protection systems that ignore gender inequality will likely fail to mitigate the risks of the pandemic for women, and, at worst, could further exacerbate inequalities. Therefore, inclusive economic policies that empower women and create resilience now and for the future must be designed to ensure women contribute to the global recovery. This paper offers guidance and considerations for policymakers to support women’s inclusion and empowerment.

This Briefing provides guidance to policymakers to work with financial sector regulators and implement COVID-19 social assistance payments that facilitate rapid, remote account opening in compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) rules.

Around the world, women are being hit hard by the economic impacts of COVID-19 (coronavirus). As the fallout from the pandemic deepens, so do the short and longer term effects on women's empowerment. The insecurity and lack of social protection that characterize informal, temporary, unpaid labor put millions of women and their families at extreme risk: in many developing countries, most women in paid work were working informally - around 95 percent in Asia and 89 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper summarizes the range of practice across jurisdictions that have employed a combination of SDD (also known as tiered CDD), licensing of non-bank financial institutions, and digital identification to enroll unbanked individuals into financial accounts so that they could receive COVID-19-related relief cash transfers.

Globally, the expansion of social assistance is among the most common public policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge of quickly determining who would be eligible for these transfers highlighted gaps in information about workers in the informal sector and their families and other vulnerable groups. This review of some early international experiences of scaling up social assistance in response to the pandemic reveals the importance of certain ‘assets’ such as a robust digital identification system and other key registries.

Social cash transfers to vulnerable households and individuals have been adopted at an unprecedented scale across sub-Saharan Africa. While most programs initially relied on manual cash disbursements, digital payment technologies have been on the rise since the early 2000s. Through a survey of 130 programs in 44 countries this paper offers a comprehensive overview of payment instruments and providers used in the region. Although cash continues to play a key role in the disbursement of social transfers, the adoption of electronic payments through private companies is increasing and further payment reforms and digitization efforts can be expected.

There’s a better way to deliver government-to-person (G2P) payments. Modernizing the delivery architecture can increase value for customers, increase customer choice, lower government costs and create competition among financial service providers.

The consumer consent model for data privacy and protection is broken. It’s time for a new data paradigm whereby financial services providers and data collectors take greater responsibility for protecting customers’ data.

Most digital financial services users require agents to help them switch between worlds of cash and digital currency. Global evidence suggests six principles for building viable agent networks in rural areas home to poor, financially excluded populations.