#Quasi cash registration

#Quasi cash registration

To enable the immediate implementation of the “Nafa Quick” program, a basic Management Information System (MIS) was created in July 2020 to reduce potential errors in beneficiary registration and establish a temporary payment mechanism. Therefore, the project supported the Government in establishing the “Nafa Quick” program, which was a four-month, quasi-universal and unconditional cash transfer program.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an urgent need to respond quickly.

The design was deliberately broad and simple to reach as many people as possible (including 40 percent of the extreme poor) in a low-capacity environment. The World Bank Project incorporated successful elements of an earlier health project that had used cash transfers with social and behavioral change modules to promote investments in human capital. Thus, there was no basis for a large-scale, coordinated and effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although social protection support in The Gambia has increased since early 2017, interventions were few and fragmented. However, neither had been implemented, largely due to a lack of domestic or donor financing. The Government and development partners had published a National Social Protection Policy (2015-2025) and a National Social Protection Implementation Plan (2015-20).

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide and the first cases were recorded in The Gambia, there was no social safety net in place to mitigate the impact of stay-home orders, lost income, and lower remittances on the Gambian population.