NEW TECHNOLOGIESIN CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMMING

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PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

• Review of new technologies applied to humanitarian CTP at every stage of the project cycle

• Identify benefits & drawbacks as well as preconditions, user-friendliness, cost-effectiveness, accountability and broader consequences

• Identify barriers to uptake and unmet needs

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1. E-PAYMENTS SOLUTIONS

Pre-paid card Smart card Mobile money Mobile voucher

Description Plastic mag-stripe cardread in any valid ATM or POS

Plastic card with chip, read in any valid POS

Stored value transferred between ‘mobile wallets’ on mobile phone sim cards via sms

Transfer of voucher code and unique ID via sms

Usage Cash grants; Vouchers

Cash grants andstore purchases

Cash grants and vouchers Vouchers

Scale (HH) (actual so far)

300 <> 1.3m 1000 <>60,000 100<>8,000 1000<>5000

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3. DIGITAL DATA GATHERING

PDA / Smart PhoneDigital PenMini computers

Offline or online

5. CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES: COST EFFECTIVENESS

For Agencies: • High costs of initial

investment are prohibitive with short-term funding horizons

• Costs of technological solutions decrease with scale and time

…COST EFFECTIVENESS CON’T

For beneficiaries:• Potential for time saved in registration & waiting time• Opportunity cost of time savings in travel to

distribution / cash points

Manual

Zap

ACCOUNTABILITY

• To donors:– Effective systems can improve accountability by

providing clearer audit trails, reporting etc.• To beneficiaries:– Potential for improved 2-way information flows– Importance of acceptance & investing in education– Concerns over movement to control expenditure, e.g.

by using technology to restrict purchases to particular commodities

– Concerns over privacy protection / informed consent

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6. CONSTRAINTS TO WIDER ADOPTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

• Technical constraints – including capacity / availability of service providers & coverage

• Institutional – lack of knowledge, systems, procedures; lack of sharing between departments / offices; institutional inertia; lack of resources; low levels of knowledge & literacy among beneficiaries

• Operational – set-up time; lack of knowledge for costing & provider comparison; lack of systems and processes for coordination & administration

• Financial – high set-up costs; short funding horizons; lack of incentive / business case for private sector providers

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…CONSTRAINTS CON’T

• Regulatory – restrictive national requirements; lack of regulations on data protection; proprietary nature of systems

• Political – competition for funding & reluctance to share; adversity to early adoption; private sector reluctant to admit limitations

• Attitudinal – risk adversity / reluctance to invest in new ways of working; distrust of private sector; donor attitude to funding; distrust by beneficiary population

7. RECOMMENDED ACTIONS

• Wider adoption of these technologies throughout the program cycle has the potential to improve humanitarian CTP and wider programming

• The period after a sudden-onset emergency is not the time to be developing / trying new systems

• Context-specific preparedness activities & institutional commitment are critical

ADVOCACY & POLICY

• At global level:– Develop codes of conduct & standards for management

and sharing of personal data– Approach international regulatory bodies & advocate for

guidelines on the adoption of KYC requirements appropriate to humanitarian contexts

– Appoint a ‘moderator’ or focal point within the humanitarian system who can liaise with the ICT sector

– Support the development of solutions to the mobile money interface problem

• Donors: create funding structures / incentives that allow agencies to invest in new technologies

ADVOCACY & POLICY CON’T

• At country level:– Where regulations are restrictive, lobby for

agreement on KYC requirements for humanitarian contexts

– Lobby for the expansion of the network to reach at-risk populations

– Support the development of platforms & services that are ‘pro-poor’

COORDINATION

• Invest in sharing experiences (including negative) and gathering evidence

• Work together to achieve political significance / economies of scale

• Improve dialogue & coordination with service providers, including ‘pre-agreements’ & scenarios

• Explore the potential to scale-up existing transfer systems (social protection, remittances, payroll)

CAPACITY & PREPAREDNESS

• Improve in-house capacity to use e-payments:– Use systems that already exist, e.g. for payroll– Invest in training on open-source solutions– Engage in communication & education with recipient

populations– Involve finance, IT and logistics

• Contingency planning:– Assess options, cost-benefit analysis

• DDG:– Assess needs & explore what open-source / off-the-shelf

solutions are available– Invest in training

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NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMMING

RESEARCH BY CONCERN WORLDWIDE, THE PARTNERSHIP FOR RESEARCH IN INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS AND DEVELOPMENT (PRIAD) AND OXFORD POLICY MANAGEMENT (OPM)

AUTHORS:GABRIELLE SMITH; IAN MACAUSLAN; SAUL

BUTTERS AND MATHIEU TROMME

© THE CASH LEARNING PARTNERSHIP (CALP) 2011