Good practice in the development of management information systems for social protection

In recent years, social protection has moved rapidly up the policy agenda in developing countries. Debates on the design of social protection schemes, however, are often dominated by ideological discussions. Less attention is given to implementation challenges.

Management information systems (MISs) are core to the design of social protection schemes. Indeed, social protection schemes could be regarded as systems of information management. The various components of social protection schemes – such as “targeting”,“registration”, “conditions”, “payments”, “grievance systems” and “exit and graduation” – all require information to be captured, transferred, stored and analysed. Yet, little attention is paid to MISs in the social protection literature.

This paper, therefore, aims to fill a gap in the literature by examining good practice in the design of MISs for social protection.