The ISPA Tool: Assessing Social Protection Payment Delivery Mechanisms
Wednesday, 7 September, at 9:00 – 10:00 (Washington DC)
The quality of the mechanism used to deliver payments to beneficiaries in a Social Protection (SP) program has a direct bearing on that program’s success or failure. The entire program can be undermined if payments do not reach the right people at the right time, in the right place and in the right form, in an efficient manner, and in the correct amount.
A well-designed and -implemented SP payment delivery mechanism will deliver cash or near cash transfers more efficiently and reliably while providing access to a range of financial services. Careful design, implementation, and monitoring of SP payment delivery mechanisms helps to capture positive impacts and avoid or mitigate negative impacts on program funders, beneficiaries and the wider communities.
The webinar will present the Social Protection Payments Delivery Mechanism Tool that was developed as part of the Inter-Agency Social Protection Assessment (ISPA) initiative. The tool presents the main elements of a well-performing payment delivery mechanism for the delivery of cash or near cash SP transfers that are primarily targeted at poor and vulnerable populations. The tool provides guidance to those wishing to carry out or commission a country or program assessment of payment mechanisms used to deliver cash transfers for SP programs.
In the webinar you will learn about the main methods and different components of SP payments delivery, the main stakeholders and the role they play as well as how the financial and SP systems environment impacts SP payments. The tool proposes 3 main criteria to assess quality of payment delivery mechanisms: Accessibility, Robustness and Integration.
