This paper reports on a rapid assessment of Malawi's integrated social registry, known as the Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR). The timing of the assessment was ripe given the upcoming round of continued expansion of the UBR and a planned shift in registration targets (from 50 percent to 100 percent of households). As such, the objectives of this assessment are to: (a) review the UBR experience to date; (b) identify strengths and areas for improvement; (c) provide short-term recommendations to support the upcoming expansion, including implementation adaptations that would be needed to accommodate the revised registration targets; and (d) support the longer-term strengthening of the UBR. While primary audience for this paper includes the core stakeholders in Malawi, the report is also of potential interest to other countries interested in developing social registries and/or carrying out social registry assessments. Malawi's UBR has many strong fundamentals. The Government has taken the lead in designing, managing, and implementing the UBR with strong ownership across the core agencies involved. Implementation is carried out by existing decentralized institutional structures, which is a major strength. Implementation processes and information systems are effective, and most importantly, data quality is robust and registration coverage is rapidly expanding. Nonetheless, the report identifies key short-term and longer-term actions that could address challenges and strengthen the effectiveness of the UBR, including in the areas of institutional arrangements, implementation processes, information systems, data quality, links to user programs, communications, and a possible rebranding of the UBR to support better understanding of this powerful tool for inclusion and coordination in social protection and beyond.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.