IPC-IG and socialprotection.org participated in a SPIAC-B Social Protection Digitalisation Working Group workshop on an ISPA tool in Bonn

By IPC-IG
Photo: archive

Krista Joosep Alvarenga, research analyst at the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), and Mariana Balboni, Senior Project Officer at the IPC-IG and Coordinator of the socialprotection.org platform, and Maria Teresa Amaral Fontes, from UNDP Brazil, participated in the Inter-Agency Social Protection Assessments (ISPA) “Workshop on the Playbook on Dynamic Social Registries and Interoperable Social Information Systems”, on 7-8 November, in Bonn, Germany.  

The Playbook is an initiative led by the World Bank and developed in the spirit of the ISPA. It is one of the workstreams within the Social Protection Inter-Agency Cooperation Board (SPIAC-B) Working Group on Digital Social Protection, led by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ GmbH). The SPIAC-B itself is an “inter-agency coordination mechanism—composed of representatives of international organisations and bilateral institutions—to enhance global coordination and advocacy on social protection issues and to coordinate international cooperation in country demand-driven actions”. 

In addition to representatives from the IPC-IG, workshop participants included experts working on the digitalisation of social protection from the GIZ, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Social Security Association (ISSA), the European Commission, and the World Food Programme. The activities focused on further defining the terminology, architecture and conceptual framing of the Playbook through discussions and deep dive sessions.  

According to Krista, ISPA tools are important social protection instruments that UN agencies and partners have created through coordinated efforts. They offer practical methodologies that can help governments improve their social protection systems by analysing their strengths and weaknesses and proposing options for further action. She highlighted that since this ISPA tool still required expert inputs, and especially consensus-building, the face-to-face discussions in Bonn were crucial.