m-Score Registry (www.mscore.net)

Many countries offer a myriad of social protection services to meet the diverse needs of their populations. Examples of social programs include social insurance programs, such as unemployment insurance savings accounts and long-term savings accounts for pensions cash transfers (conditional or unconditional) or in-kind benefits, social services for children, youth, parents, or the elderly; as well as labor and activation programs. Although these programs may seem quite different, they usually pass through common phases along the delivery chain, including:

- determining potential eligibility, via outreach; application and registration; assessment of needs and conditions;
- taking decisions on enrollment and the benefits or service package; and
- carrying out the implementation cycle of transactions (payments or service provision) and active case management (including counseling, conditionalities monitoring, accompanying measures, grievance redress).

m-Score Registry support the first phase of this delivery chain. They are information systems that support outreach, application, registration, and determination of potential eligibility for one or more social programs.

To address social protection diverse needs of the poor, many countries offer a myriad of social benefits and services. Despite good intentions, this can lead to fragmentation in the absence of a clear strategy and coordinated processes and systems.   

For individuals and households, such fragmentation means lacking proper information about certain programs and claiming support from different actors, traveling from office to office across town, waiting in long lines, and repeatedly providing the same documents. In the end, people experience frustration due to complicated bureaucracy, and incur significant personal costs due to the time and money spent navigating through this process.

For administrators, fragmentation can result in higher administrative costs, duplications in processes, and lack of coordination in determining eligibility for programs that aim to serve common population groups. 

- Informal workers 

- Local government 

- Migrants and Refugees 

- Rural households

m-Score Registry is an information system that support the processes of outreach, registration, and assessment of needs and conditions that help determine the potential eligibility of individuals, families or households for one or multiple programs.  

It is a social protection registry that serve both a social policy role, as inclusion systems, and an operational role, as information systems.   They provide a “gateway” for potential inclusion of intended populations into social programs while reducing private and public transactions costs by simplifying certain steps, such as registration.

It provide a “gateway” for potential inclusion of intended populations into social programs while reducing private and public transactions costs by simplifying certain steps, such as registration.

For administrators, integrated and dynamic social protection registry can improve coordination. Resources are shared across sectors, reducing administrative costs. Data quality, accuracy and coordination in identifying potential beneficiaries can also be improved.  More importantly, integration can lead to increased responsiveness in registering for social programs in times of crisis. 

For individuals and households, an integrated and dynamic social registry can make registration and eligibility processes much simpler – facilitating their access to potential social programs. Simplification and improved communication allows the population to know when and where they can register, have clear knowledge of the process, information and documents they need to present at registration.  They will also know how to check on their application status or file a grievance, and when they will be notified of eligibility and enrollment decisions.