In March 2020, the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme was a response to the COVID-19 crisis, which in addition to its dire health consequences, decimated livelihoods at an unprecedented scale. 

In response, the Government of Pakistan delivered Rs. 179 billion as one-time emergency cash assistance to over 15 million families at risk of extreme poverty. Given family size, this represents nearly half the country’s population, representing the largest and most extensive social protection intervention ever in the history of the country.

Each family was meant to receive Rs. 12,000 for immediate subsistence. 

Digital capabilities established in 2019 as part of Ehsaas were adapted to deliver Ehsaas Emergency Cash, in particular, a new biometric payment system, a demand side SMS based request seeking platform and a new wealth profiling big data analytics mechanism.

A hybrid targeting approach was adopted, combining emergency assistance for the known vulnerable with demand-based support for the “new poor”.  

Requests were sought through an 8171 SMS short code service and web-portal. Data analytics enabled eligibility ascertainment, using unique national identification numbers, and drawing on the National Socio-economic Registry and wealth proxies (travel, taxes, billing, assets ownership data and government employment status). 

The system was end-to-end data-driven, fully automated, rule-based, transparent, and politically neutral. Payments were biometrically verified.

Ehsaas received 139 million requests of which 66 million were unique and over 14.8 million individuals collected their payments.

In terms of global experience sharing, the case of Pakistan provides useful lessons for other countries that utilize unique personal identification systems. It shows that by combining phones, internet connectivity, national IDs and commercial payment systems, a digital and innovative demand-based social protection system can be created to enable those in distress to seek social support during crises. Ehsaas Emergency Cash has been highly lauded at global level by many countries and international development institutions. Asian Development Bank, The World Bank, World Economic Forum, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, International Policy Center for Inclusive Growth and United Nations have deeply appreciated Ehsaas Emergency Cash.

The World Bank ranked Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme third in terms of percentage of population globally and fourth worldwide in terms of the number of people covered. Under the phase two of the programme, Ehsaas introduced  emergency cash assistance of Rs. 12,000 for each of the 12 million families identified through the new Ehsaas survey.

It shows that by combining phones, internet connectivity, national IDs and commercial payment systems, a digital and innovative demand-based social protection system can be created to enable those in distress to seek social support during crises. Ehsaas Emergency Cash has been highly lauded at global level by many countries and international development institutions. Asian Development Bank, The World Bank, World Economic Forum, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, International Policy Center for Inclusive Growth and United Nations have deeply appreciated Ehsaas Emergency Cash.

The full report can be accessed here.