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Digital payments have been used by governments throughout the globe to assist millions of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, distributing aid quickly and with minimal personal contact. Yet methods and results have varied across countries, providing important lessons for policymakers.
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.
World Bank Group 
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in vast numbers of people in need of social assistance, many of whom were not previously covered by social safety nets. To meet this unprecedented level of need, governments quickly scaled social assistance reaching over 1.7 billion people in low- and middle income countries. Scaling up social assistance presented two separate but related challenges: first, adapting targeting and registration to reach individuals not commonly included in...
Amr Hosny and Alexandre Sollaci
The COVID-19 shock has underscored the importance of digital tools for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of social protection systems. Cross-country evidence suggests that digital IDs linked with bank and/or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection programs and better reach eligible beneficiaries. Using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey, we present micro simulations on the welfare gains of digital social protection during the pandemic....
Madhumitha Hebbar, Sinta Satriana, Jonathan Ammoun
This case study synthesizes the social protection response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia in 2020. It is part of six country case studies developed as part of the Social Protection Approaches to COVID-19 Expert Advice Helpline’s (SPACE) learning and documentation approach. By capturing country-level social protection responses to COVID-19, the case studies aim to inform the global audiences as to what has happened, what has...
Christina Lowe
This paper discusses the main opportunities and challenges associated with digital social protection, drawing on trends pre-Covid and since the onset of the pandemic. It offers eight lessons to help social protection actors capitalize on technology’s potential in a risk-sensitive manner.
Beatriz Burattini, Camila Rolon, Lucas Sato, Victor Thives, Louisa Wagner
This policy research brief analyses how digitalisation can facilitate rural populations’ access to effective and adequate social protection and economic inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean. It investigates the region’s social protection response to COVID-19 and highlights three good practices in providing digitalised social protection to vulnerable rural populations during the crisis. Based on this analysis and considering the local obstacles to digitalised social protection in rural areas, recommendations...
Yoonyoung Cho and Doug Johnson
This note describes the phases of the COVID-19 SP response in the Philippines and assesses the performance with a focus on social assistance. It provides estimates of the coverage, adequacy, targeting accuracy, timeliness, and payment delivery of COVID-19 social assistance in the Philippines based on several household surveys and studies. The note pays special attention to the Philippines’ flagship social protection program, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and the...
