Session II: Beneficiary management in health & social protection

The latest release of openIMIS demonstrates its evolution into a versatile digital public good, supporting activities across the entire social protection delivery chain, including beneficiary registration, enrollment, benefit management, and payments. This progress reflects strategic collaboration with the World Bank's CORE-MIS platform, resulting in integrated functionalities for managing cash transfers and public works programs. With a modular, interoperable design, openIMIS can adapt to diverse program needs and contribute to Digital Public Infrastructure, including the development of a comprehensive social registry.

Over the last months the initiative started to gather requirements for social registry and integrated beneficiary solutions by interviewing key experts and implementers in the sector e.g. from WB, ILO, WFP and UNICEF. Following an input on the first findings of the requirements gathering, a panel discussion provides the chance to learn about requirements from representatives from WHO, WB and ILO – from the perspective of health and social protection. What are the potentials for a DPG solution to address such core requirements?

Session Contributors

• Facilitator Htet Nay Lin Oo, P4H Advisor, BACK-UP Health / GIZ

• Input ‘Integrated Social Protection Data Systems - Social Registry & Integrated Beneficiary Registry Capabilities’ by Thomas Byrnes, Humanitarian & Social Protection Expert / OPM

Panelists:

• Luis Frota, Program Manager, Innovation and Digital Transformation, Social Protection Department, Actuarial Services / ILO

• Andrea Martin, Coordinator CORE-MIS powered by openIMIS & Consultant / World Bank

• Carl Leitner, Technical Officer for Architecture and Informatics, Digital Health & Innovation / WHO

Requirements for Social Registry & Integrated Beneficiary Registry

Thomas Byrnes, Humanitarian & Social Protection Consultant working with Oxford Policy Management, presented key findings from a recent assessment of the functional requirements for Social Registries (SR) and Integrated Beneficiary Registries (IBR), which are essential components of digital social protection delivery systems.

This mapping exercise identified 102 detailed requirements across different functional areas for both SR and IBR systems, and identified use cases in order to prioritise and locate these requirements within the social protection delivery chain. The final report, which includes user journey mapping and discussions on interoperability and integration, is available in the openIMIS wiki Functional Requirements Mapping for Social Registry and Integrated Beneficiary Registry Systems Feedback is welcome from the community & other actors in the sector.

Presentation:

Panel Discussion on Requirements for Beneficiary Management in Health & Social Protection

The Stakeholder Conference offered a lively panel discussion featuring Luis Frota, Project Manager at the ILO, Andrea Martin, Social Protection Consultant at the World Bank and Carl Leitner, Technical Officer for Digital & Innovation at the WHO. Questions to the panellists covered the need for social registries and integrated beneficiary registration systems, the perspectives of each of these institutions on openIMIS as a beneficiary management solution in health and social protection programs, and the challenges and next steps for moving openIMIS further along this pathway.

There were numerous, well-thought out and interesting comments by the panellists and the audience members. A few of those which stood out include:

• The introduction of SRs and IBRs moves countries towards a more comprehensive view of their social protection needs. These systems play an important role in combatting the high levels of fragmentation in social protection and health financing schemes which characterise so many countries.

• Social registries – and particularly dynamic social registries – are essential not only for responding to covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, but also for addressing the idiosyncratic shocks experienced by households. They play a critical role in building human capital and household resilience – in short, they are indispensable for the effective implementation of adaptive social protection systems.

• Beneficiary management services that are common across different schemes – such as a single registration portal and a common grievance redressal mechanism – are important for improving the beneficiary experience and for expanding coverage of health and social protection services.

• As more people are on the move around the world, prompted by climate-related and environmental shocks and/or for reasons linked to violence and poverty, SRs and IBRs can play a critical role in enabling access to care when displaced. These registries are essential components of the WHO’s Global Digital Certification Network.

• As countries invest in new social protection systems, it is essential to think about broader systems that strengthen human capital. Social registries can serve as versatile platforms for delivering health benefits and services, particularly as people in a SR are often the hardest to reach. openIMIS, with its expanded SP functionalities, offers a foundation for advancing such integration.

• SRs and IBRs provide an entry point for enhancing the digital eco-systems in implementing countries – for example, the data reforms and ID systems development that are needed to develop a SR will enhance interoperability for the whole system.

• It is important to consider the non-functional challenges when setting up SRs and IBRs, such as capacity constraints, and where these systems will be hosted. Lessons can be learned from other countries with similar implementation contexts.