Household identity validation for social assistance programs

Background: The National Information System for Social Assistance (NISSA) programme initiated by the Government of Lesotho in partnership with the European Union and UNICEF to create inclusive and high value social protection assistance, adopted the census approach where households in deprived areas were classified into four social groups, to ensure that eligible families benefit from programmes such as child grant funds. The Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) developed some management information system (MIS) modules required to meet the program objectives. However, a critical module needed for community validation and enrollment processes was still outstanding in the NISSA database to ensure that the program targeted the most vulnerable households.

Solution: Bewsys designed and developed the NISSA household validation and enrolment mobile application and web portal for the Government of Lesotho. The mobile application was designed to facilitate data collection and validation, and beneficiary registration on the field. The offline feature of the application allowed social workers to access and collect data easily and efficiently from remote communities. For inclusive data capture, the mobile and web app supported both Sesotho and English to ensure that language does not limit the provision of inclusive social protection to vulnerable households.

Impact: As of August 2020, data on 331,000 households had been collected from 64 community councils through the NISSA  household validation and enrollment mobile application and web portal. The Ministry of Social Development, Lesotho now has access to reliable data to deliver targeted social grants and social welfare services to vulnerable households.