openIMIS Stakeholder Conference, Nov 2024

The inaugural openIMIS Stakeholder Conference took place on Wednesday, 27 November 2024, and was attended by more than 70 representatives of government and non-government implementing agencies, software developers, bilateral and multilateral development partners, and international organizations working in the fields of digitalization, health, and social protection.

The objectives of this lively and well-attended online event were to promote Digital Public Goods (DPGs) for the management of health and social protection programs, to introduce openIMIS solutions to a wider audience, and to connect to organizations working on the demand-side, especially on beneficiary management. Andreas Zeidler, Coordinator and Adviser, UHC and Global Health Governance at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), facilitated the overall conference.

Welcome remarks and overview of openIMIS

The conference opened with remarks by the three co-financing institutions of the openIMIS Initiative. Noting that more than 70 percent of people worldwide still lacks access to social protection, António Teixeira, Head of Social Protection, Inequalities and Disability at the European Commission (EU), underlined the EU’s strong commitment both to extending social protection coverage, and to investing in digital transformation. In line with the EU Global Gateway Strategy, Mr Teixeira also stressed the importance of investing in global initiatives such as the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI) and in DPGs such as openIMIS, which play a critical role in facilitating the roll-out of digital social protection systems.

Alexander Schrade, Senior Policy Officer, Population Policy and Social Protection Division at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), hailed the recent growth in the openIMIS community - as evidenced by the largest audience for such a meeting to date - while setting out some of the key advantages of DPGs such as openIMIS.
Selina Baumberger, Program Officer, Thematic Cooperation for Health at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), welcomed the EU into the group of openIMIS funders at a critical time for the Initiative’s growth. Ms Baumberger remarked that SDC is particularly proud of the fact that a large proportion of openIMIS contributors are women, and highlighted SDC’s support to regional and local capacity development, which has played such a critical role in the expansion of openIMIS into new areas of social protection and health financing.

Saurav Bhattarai of the openIMIS Coordination Desk then provided a rapid overview of openIMIS’ recent activities and achievements, citing among other things the fast-expanding group of regional and global partner institutions and public/private sector contributors, a reach of nearly 25 million beneficiaries worldwide, and the status of openIMIS as a DPG capable of leveraging Digital Public Infrastructure for added efficiency.

Session 1: openIMIS as a community-powered Digital Public Good

Session 1 of the conference focused on openIMIS as a community-powered DPG. Facilitated by Sylvia Mwelu of the Kenya Health Informatics Association (KeHIA), it began with a short video showcasing diverse voices from the openIMIS community from a wide range of countries, including Angola, Bangladesh, Cameroon, the Gambia, Nepal and Poland. An overriding message from all the speakers was the importance of the open source community, which facilitates the exchange of knowledge and experience among members, whilst acting as a catalyst for the development of new and innovative functionalities.

Taking this theme forward, Sylvia introduced three speakers who spoke about their work with the openIMIS community. The speakers were Kristin Pascual, Community Manager of the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), Dragos Dobre, Technical Expert at Swiss TPH, and Dorcas Wanza Mwatani, Technical Adviser at DCI.

Session 2: Beneficiary management in health and social protection

Session 2 of the conference explored beneficiary management in health and social protection, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of how openIMIS could further evolve in the direction of a beneficiary management solution. The session facilitator, Htet Nay Lin Oo, Senior Adviser with the P4H Social Health Protection Network, began by borrowing the language of economics to highlight two critical features of common goods for health and social protection, such as openIMIS: non-rivalry whereby the increasing use of openIMIS does not make it less available to others; and non-exclusivity which means that it is it available to all regardless of user profile.

He then handed over to Thomas Byrnes, Humanitarian & Social Protection Consultant working with Oxford Policy Management, who presented key findings from a recent assessment of the functional requirements for Social Registries (SR) and Integrated Beneficiary Registries (IBR), which are essential components of digital social protection delivery systems.

This mapping exercise identified 102 detailed requirements across different functional areas for both SR and IBR systems, and identified use cases in order to prioritise and locate these requirements within the social protection delivery chain. The final report, which includes user journey mapping and discussions on interoperability and integration, is available via the openIMIS wiki. Feedback is welcome from the community.

The conference closed with a lively panel discussion featuring Luis Frota, Project Manager at the ILO, Andrea Martin, Social Protection Consultant at the World Bank and Carl Leitner, Technical Officer for Digital & Innovation at the WHO. Questions to the panellists covered the need for social registries and integrated beneficiary registration systems, the perspectives of each of these institutions on openIMIS as a beneficiary management solution in health and social protection programs, and the challenges and next steps for moving openIMIS further along this pathway.

There were numerous, well-thought out and interesting comments by the panellists and the audience members. A few of those which stood out include:

The introduction of SRs and IBRs moves countries towards a more comprehensive view of their social protection needs. These systems play an important role in combatting the high levels of fragmentation in social protection and health financing schemes which characterise so many countries.
Social registries – and particularly dynamic social registries – are essential not only for responding to covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, but also for addressing the idiosyncratic shocks experienced by households. They play a critical role in building human capital and household resilience – in short, they are indispensable for the effective implementation of adaptive social protection systems.
Beneficiary management services that are common across different schemes – such as a single registration portal and a common grievance redressal mechanism – are important for improving the beneficiary experience and for expanding coverage of health and social protection services.
As more people are on the move around the world, prompted by climate-related and environmental shocks and/or for reasons linked to violence and poverty, SRs and IBRs can play a critical role in enabling access to care when displaced. These registries are essential components of the WHO’s Global Digital Certification Network.
As countries invest in new social protection systems, it is essential to think about broader systems that strengthen human capital. Social registries can serve as versatile platforms for delivering health benefits and services, particularly as people in a SR are often the hardest to reach. openIMIS, with its expanded SP functionalities, offers a foundation for advancing such integration.
SRs and IBRs provide an entry point for enhancing the digital eco-systems in implementing countries – for example, the data reforms and ID systems development that are needed to develop a SR will enhance interoperability for the whole system.
It is important to consider the non-functional challenges when setting up SRs and IBRs, such as capacity constraints, and where these systems will be hosted. Lessons can be learned from other countries with similar implementation contexts.

In today’s competitive market, openIMIS is pursuing different strategies for growth, including prioritising capacity development in partner countries through, for example, linkages with academic institutions. Participation in the openIMIS community supports capacity development as well as rapid technological development through activities such as the new Stakeholder Committee, regular exchange between the different openIMIS communities (developers, implementers and users of the software), and opportunities to showcase new functionalities and to take feedback from the community. Conferences such as this first Stakeholder Conference are a new and important part of this strategy.