Delivery systems are the core infrastructure that adaptive social protection (ASP) programs need to reliably identify, reach, and support poor and vulnerable households in both regular times and during shocks. ASP depends on strong and well‑functioning delivery systems — including ID systems, social registries, payment arrangements, grievance mechanisms, and frontline service providers — that can operate consistently and at scale. Across the Sahel, countries continue to strengthen these systems and the institutional anchoring that allows them to function effectively, including when needs temporarily surge.
Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program
Delivery Systems for Efficient ASP Provision
© Dominic Chavez / World Bank
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The systems and governance arrangements that enable inclusive, timely, and effective support delivery to the poorest and most vulnerable
SASPP offers support to governments at each step of the delivery chain. All stages are essential for connecting people to ASP interventions, including in shock-affected environments, and for delivering results. SASPP support also ensures delivery systems are embedded in strong, sustainable institutional arrangements, and grounded in national policies.
Source: Lindert et all. 2020. Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social Protection Delivery Systems, World Bank. The image shows the social protection delivery chain, which includes four phases: assessment, enrollment, provision, and management. It highlights how benefit delivery and case management are closely linked and recur over time.
The assessment and enrollment phases focus on identifying and reaching potential beneficiaries. This starts with outreach efforts that encourage households to participate, by clearly explaining the objectives, instruments, and design of programs, the eligibility criteria, and enrollment processes, all essential for transparency and inclusion. In most countries in the Sahel, initial intake and registration build on national social registries (see related section in the menu above).
The provision phase focuses on delivering programs in an inclusive, effective, and efficient manner. This phase relies on delivery systems such as payment mechanisms, as well as decentralized delivery networks (local social workers delivering accompanying measures or coaches providing guidance on business development).
Finally, the management phase promotes inclusion, results, and impact in multiple ways. It helps households enter and exit from programs, and transition toward greater self-reliance. In this phase, grievance redress mechanisms (GRMs) also enable beneficiaries to register and have concerns addressed: GRMs in the Sahel resolved over 92 percent of complaints in 2025. Adaptive management approaches allow programs to continuously improve. Monitoring and evaluations promote an understanding of how delivery works, what impact it has achieved, and what good practices have been deployed. Critically, it identifies adjustments, while providing accountability and transparency in operations.
The effectiveness of delivery systems in ensuring ASP programs are most impactful depends on the institutional arrangements that sustain them. Institutionalizing delivery systems and programs means embedding them within national policies, legal frameworks, and budgets. It also means moving beyond fragmented, project-based approaches towards integrated whole-of-government programs and systems that can be used by other actors. By strengthening government capacity to deliver support, institutionalized systems reinforce the social contract between states and citizens, creating the conditions for sustained financing and broader coordination and alignment of partners. SASPP supports governments in the Sahel at these two levels: boosting the impacts of the delivery mechanics and strengthening the institutions that allow ASP systems to perform, scale, and endure.
Last Updated: Feb 28, 2026
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Deploying dynamic and interoperable social registries at scale helps ensure ASP systems leave none behind
Social registries are essential instruments in the Sahel, giving ASP programs a reliable way to identify, register, and assess the needs and conditions of households that need support, including in rapidly changing conditions. During SASPP Phase 2, registries expanded from 1.6 million to over 4.2 million households, with significant improvements in the quality of the data and in their sensitivity to gender and disability. These improvements allowed countries to deliver more inclusive safety net and economic inclusion programs, and to respond faster to shocks. During SASPP Phase 3, as vulnerabilities in fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) and climate-affected contexts continue to shift rapidly, the next step is to ensure social registries become more dynamic and interoperable, allowing governments and their partners near-real-time visibility into the changing poverty and vulnerability dynamics of the region.
A dynamic social registry is a living platform, which reduces data decay by enabling continuous intake and more frequent welfare assessments; allows households to update information through accessible client interfaces; collects data more efficiently through modular questionnaires; and/or uses proxies (such as SWIFT-based PMT models) that require fewer and more flexible variables to assess poverty or vulnerability. These elements strengthen inclusion, including for mobile populations, while allowing ASP systems to adjust vertically and horizontally as shocks unfold. Interoperability and data exchange between social registries, national identification systems, program management information systems across sectors, payment platforms, and grievance mechanisms contribute to the digital public infrastructure that improves the reach and efficiency of ASP systems in delivering strong impacts for poor and vulnerable people.
SASPP focuses on helping countries consolidate and scale social registry achievements. This includes supporting the expansion of dynamic systems; developing on-demand data collection methods; improving partner guidelines for the use of social registries; and raising awareness of the central role registries play. In addition to direct technical assistance and investments, SASPP supports knowledge exchanges — such as the South–South workshop held in Brazil to learn from the flagship Cadastro Único or a francophone technical exchange in Dakar with partners and country representatives.
This agenda builds on regional momentum. Mauritania has expanded its social registry to include basic household data on all households and more detailed socioeconomic data on the 40 percent of the population which include both the poorest or those most at risk of falling into poverty. With SASPP support, Mauritania is developing a strategy to allow households to register or update data anytime. Senegal is taking similar steps. After nearly doubling the size of its social registry from 541,000 households to close to 1 million, representing around 47 percent of Senegal’s total population and covering both poor and vulnerable households, the government is developing on-demand intake and registration modalities.
While there are plenty of challenges ahead, together, these initiatives set the stage for a next-generation social registry ecosystem: more inclusive, more responsive, and better aligned with the realities of the Sahel.
Last Updated: Feb 28, 2026
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Making adaptive social protection payments beneficiary-centered, efficient, and secure
Monetary transfers are a critical component of many ASP programs, alongside accompanying measures focused on building human capital, productivity, climate adaptation, or social cohesion, among others. Payment mechanisms are the way programs provide these transfers through different payment instruments such as cash or mobile money accounts. When they work well, support is accessible, comes on time, safely, efficiently, and with no added burden to recipients. When they don’t, people travel far, face additional risks, liquidity shortages, delays, and even illegitimate fees. SASPP is supporting countries in the Sahel in providing payments that are accessible, predictable, secure, easy to use, and that offer beneficiaries real choice – making it easier for men and women to access the support in ways that best meet their needs and address their constraints.
Governments gain too. Strengthened payment mechanisms improve transparency, reduce fraud, and lower delivery costs. When multiple programs mobilize multiple providers using shared national payment infrastructure, they create competition, ensure continuity of service, improve user experience, and lower costs. SASPP is supporting this shift by conducting country diagnostics such as in Mali or Senegal; by strengthening understanding and the exchange of good practices around social payment mechanisms; and by providing ad-hoc technical assistance on improving existing payment mechanisms or engaging sector actors to build shared knowledge around national payment infrastructure.
SASPP supports government-led ASP programs, so digitizing how governments pay people (G2P) is a priority in our work. Digitizing payments in the Sahel means both payment instruments, such as account-based transfers through mobile money, as well as improving the back-end processes that make programs work. SASPP supports governments in strengthening back-end foundations, so they translate into better front-end service. When transfers efficiently flow to mobile wallets, people gain faster access, traceability improves, and over time, so does financial inclusion (opening doors to savings, credit, and thus stronger coping capacity for recipients).
Despite challenges, the share of payments that are digital has increased significantly in the region, growing from 20 to 64 percent between 2021 and 2025. Countries are advancing digital social transfers to reduce waiting times and fraud while boosting convenience, financial inclusion, and women’s autonomy. For example, in Senegal, a SASPP-supported pilot offered layered payment options and strong risk controls to ensure beneficiaries with limited phone access, IDs, or agent proximity were safely and successfully included in the transition.
Last Updated: Feb 28, 2026