International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) (April 2022) This Policy Research Brief analyses how digitalisation can facilitate rural populations’ access to effective and adequate social protection and economic inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean. It investigates the region’s social protection response to COVID-19 and highlights three good practices in providing digitalised social protection to vulnerable rural populations during the crisis.

Asian Development Bank (December 2021) Examples from low- and middle-income countries in the region and beyond are drawn to demonstrate how digital solutions have improved health insurance management and administration. To support decision-making on potential investments, the report identifies key success factors for integrating new technologies into public health insurance schemes.

brookings.edu (23.02.2022) Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) as an instrument for improving efficiency in the public sector is at an all-time high. This interest is motivated by the ambition to develop neutral, scientific, and objective techniques of government decisionmaking (Harcourt 2018). As of April 2021, governments of 19 European countries had launched national AI strategies.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) (10.02.2022) The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the foundations of the economy and provoked devastating social effects in all countries of the world, with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) one of the most affected regions. The region is experiencing deteriorating levels of poverty and extreme poverty, most significantly affecting children and adolescents. This One Pager discusses digital payment systems for social protection interventions in the region.

brookings.edu (17.02.2022) The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed an estimated 124 million people into extreme poverty globally, the first increase in extreme poverty in 20 years. To meet the magnitude of this need, governments around the world have dramatically ramped up social protection measures, and in particular cash transfers, which comprised one-third of all COVID-related social protection programs. A staggering 17 percent of the world’s population, or 1.3 billion people, were covered by at least one COVID-related cash payment between 2020 and 2021.

Atlantis Press (06.01.2022) Social protection system in Indonesia has played an important role in delivering social assistances to poor households in the past two decades. Literature of digital transformation in Indonesia’s social protection policy is still limited, therefore, this research serves to fill the gap as well as providing general ideas for future research.

Philippine News Agency (17.10.2021) The implementation of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) has resulted in milestones for the country's social protection and digital transformation, according to a World Bank official. 

He said success in utilizing PhilSys for social protection has a "significant demonstration effect" in accelerating digital transformation among government agencies and even the private sector.

worldbank.org (01.05.2021) The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is having devastating impacts on the economy and people of the Philippines, and since the onset of pandemic, the Government of the Philippines (GoP) has responded with strong social protection measures. The Social Amelioration Program (SAP) enacted under the Bayanihan To Heal as One Act in March 2020 and managed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), aims to provide cash assistance to 18 million households (over 75 percent of total households) in the country.

Privacy International (22.06.2021) The global Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst for technology-intensive initiatives for welfare distribution, coming at a high cost to human rights and inclusion: enforcing automated discrimination, exacerbating existing inequalities and compromising access to essential benefits.

Digital transformation in the health sector is not a simple matter of technical change, but requires adaptive change in human attitudes and skills as well as of legal frameworks and  the organisation of work.