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Including those in need, when they need it: Why dynamic social registries matter in shock-prone contexts like the Sahel

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Why dynamic social registries matter in shock-prone contexts like the Sahel Walking through fields in rural Mali. Credit: Curt Carnemark / World Bank, 2023.

The Sahel is faced with increasingly frequent and severe interconnected shocks, particularly those related to climate change and conflict, exacerbating risks and vulnerabilities to poverty, food insecurity, inequality, and low levels of human capital. To effectively respond to these crises, governments require systems enabling them to rapidly and accurately identify sudden changes in household welfare. A new study supported by the Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP), explores how dynamic social registries, as essential delivery systems, can play this role, effectively assessing changes in welfare among poor and vulnerable populations, those affected by climate change, and forcibly displaced groups.

Adaptive social protection is a proven approach for governments to reach the poorest and most vulnerable at scale, strengthening their resilience to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to crises. Social registries are one of the backbones of adaptive social protection programs. They provide vital data for the delivery of support, information, and services to the vulnerable. By systematically collecting and processing demographic and socioeconomic data, they can be used to assess a range of welfare indicators including monetary and non-monetary poverty, food insecurity, disability, and vulnerability to climate shocks, among others.

Social Protection Delivery Chain

Social Protection Delivery Chain Source: Lindert et al. 2020
Social Registries for Multiple Programs Source: Lindert et al. 2020

 

In the Sahel, to date, most social registries are either static or have limited coverage. Governments often pre-define fixed registration quotas and undertake administrator-driven ‘census-like’ efforts to collect and update household data in cycles, typically with three or more years in between each cycle. While this approach is common during the initial deployment of social registries, it is not cost-effective to sustain large-scale registration campaigns every few years and can also lead to exclusion and inclusion errors between cycles, as household conditions are constantly changing. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is estimated that 29.7 percent of people move in and out of transient poverty in between household surveys (on average over a period of 5 years), while 33.3 percent are chronically poor1. This is exacerbated in shock-prone contexts like the Sahel, where households are often just ‘one shock away’ from falling into poverty due to climate shocks, such as floods or droughts, or fragility and conflict. As a result, information stored in static social registries can quickly become outdated, turning them into a ‘closed door’ rather than a gateway to social protection programs for households falling into poverty between cycles, and hindering the effectiveness of regular and shock response programs.

Dynamic social registries keep data current. A key distinction between static and dynamic social registries is the latter’s capability to continuously intake data by updating data on existing households and registering new ones on-demand. In addition to their regular deployment, during times of shock, adaptive social protection programs must rapidly expand both vertically — by increasing support to those already enrolled — and horizontally — by reaching shock-affected households not previously enrolled. By enabling households to report changes in their welfare on-demand, dynamic social registries ensure that the information of already registered households is up-to-date and relevant for a rapid expansion. Similarly, through on-demand intake and triggered registration campaigns during or after a shock, households that have newly fallen into poverty can be considered for a horizontal expansion.

 Dynamic Social Registries for Vertical and Horizontal Expansions

 Dynamic Social Registries for Vertical and Horizontal Expansions Source: Adapted from Bowen et al. 2020 and Guven et al. 2020

 

For social registries to become dynamic, governments need to establish a direct link between households and the registry — a permanent interface, either physical or digital, where households can report their changing circumstances on-demand. In Sahelian countries, limited internet penetration and low digital literacy levels may preclude or limit a digital interface in the short run. Brazil has overcome these barriers with an innovative approach: a ubiquitous network of 8,500 physical service centres at the municipality level, allowing households to report and update their information at a time of their choosing. These centres are complemented by proactive registration campaigns reaching the most isolated populations. Some governments in the Sahel and West Africa, such as in Benin, Mauritania, and Senegal, are considering similar innovations by leveraging local governance structures to decentralize data collection and establish a permanent interface for their social registries.

Establishing and expanding dynamic social registries in the Sahel can be accelerated through systematic cross-country learning and cooperation. Robust peer-to-peer technical exchange can increase national capacity to design and implement dynamic social registries that support responsive, targeted, cost-effective, and inclusive adaptive social protection programs. Strengthening knowledge exchange with countries that have successfully implemented innovations for their social registries will be crucial to identifying workable solutions and policies. No matter the level of development of the registry, cross-country learning will be essential during critical phases of piloting, inception, or expansion to ensure evaluation, adaptation, and sustainability.

Moving forward, the design and implementation of dynamic social registries will require careful consideration to balance the need for timely and high-quality data with comprehensive population coverage. It will be essential to understand the trade-offs between the costs of implementing dynamic social registries and the consequences for human capital and resilience if poor and vulnerable households are not adequately supported in times of shock. It will also be important to identify opportunities for increasing the interoperability of dynamic social registries with other government systems and data sources — to update and cross-reference data.

Addressing the growing challenges in the Sahel presents an opportunity for social protection systems to do things differently. Making social registries dynamic is a crucial step toward building adaptive social protection programs and including those who most need support, when they need it.

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1(Dang and Dabalen 2017).

 

References:

Bowen, Thomas, Carlo Del Ninno, Colin Andrews, Sarah Coll-Black, Ugo Gentilini, Kelly Johnson, Yasuhiro Kawasoe, Adea Kryeziu, Barry Maher, and Asha Williams. 2020. “Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks.” World Bank.

Dang, Hai-Anh H., and Andrew L. Dabalen. 2018. “Is Poverty in Africa Mostly Chronic or Transient? Evidence from Synthetic Panel Data.” The Journal of Development Studies 55 (7): 1527–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2017.1417585.

Encinas, Luis Iñaki Alberro, and Sebastian Geschwind. 2025. “Dynamic Social Registries for Adaptive Social Protection.” Washington DC: World Bank.

Joubert, Clement. 2021. “Not Poor and Not Formal: Who Are the ‘Missed Middle’ of Social Protection?” World Bank Blogs. December 8, 2021. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/africacan/not-poor-and-not-formal-who-are-missed-middle-social-protection.

Lindert, Kathy, Tina Karippacheril, Inés Rodriguez Caillava, and Kenichi Nishikawa Chavez. n.d. 2020 “Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social Protection Delivery Systems.” Washington DC: World Bank. 


Luis Iñaki Alberro

Senior Social Protection Specialist, World Bank

Sebastian Geschwind

Social Protection Specialist at the World Bank

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