Social Assistance Payments in Response to COVID-19: The Role of Donors

To mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries worldwide are working to provide people, particularly low-income and vulnerable individuals, with financial aid. Financial aid delivery relies on social protection and payments systems and the extent to which these are already in place and functioning effectively.

This Briefing addresses how donors and their partners can design and implement social assistance payments that are efficient and secure while providing recipients with reliable, convenient, and safe access to their payments. Although it focuses on short- to medium-term response, this Briefing also considers the importance of the longer-term development objectives of building more resilient and responsive digital payments systems.