Re-work opening paragraph:
Cash transfers are a form of social assistance designed to provide people with quick, flexible help, particularly in emergency situations. During the COVID pandemic, some 1.3 billion people worldwide have benefitted from cash transfer schemes which aim to protect their lives and livelihoods. Cash transfers have also become increasingly favored by humanitarian aid agencies as a way to channel assistance to people and households in other types of crises, such as natural disasters. As such, they are an increasingly important instrument for reducing poverty and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1.
As the use of cash transfers becomes more widespread, there is a need for simple, flexible digital solutions which can streamline the administration of such schemes. Beneficiaries require money quickly, without having to navigate complicated administrative procedures. Payment service providers and payers/scheme operators need to be able to distribute funds efficiently to the right people and to use data to adjust the operations of the scheme, for example by adjusting inclusion criteria to reach more beneficiaries. Paper-based systems are too slow and cumbersome to manage the complex flows of information required to determine beneficiaries’ eligibility, enroll them in the scheme, calculate payments and manage the scheme’s operations. Digitalisation can help to streamline these and other processes.
openIMIS supports the following business processes for unconditional cash transfers
Registration of beneficiary households
Registration of payment service providers
Definition of payment criteria and generation of payroll
Disbursements of payments to beneficiaries
Data analysis