openIMIS Stakeholder Conference, September 2025

This year’s openIMIS Stakeholder Conference took place on Wednesday, 19 September 2025, and was attended by more than 50 representatives of bilateral implementing agencies, development partners, openIMIS community members, and international organizations working in the fields of digitalization, health and social protection, and the humanitarian sector. 

Andreas Zeidler, Coordinator and Advisor, UHC and Global Health Governance at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), facilitated the online conference, which covered the range of openIMIS solutions and explored the topic of digitalization in the humanitarian sector, considering how Digital Public Goods are and can be used in this area.
 

Welcome and introduction

Welcoming remarks were provided by representatives of the three funding organizations of the openIMIS initiative; the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the European Union (EU).

Alexander Schrade, Senior Policy Officer, Division Population Policy, Social Protection for BMZ, acknowledged that more than half of the world’s population still has no access to adequate social protection. Growing financial constraints on international cooperation highlight the need to focus on sustainable, resilient systems. Digital Public Goods like openIMIS are an important means of strengthening social protection systems and work best when supported by collaboration between multilateral organizations.

Echoing the importance of this systematic collaboration, Selina Baumberger, Program Officer, Thematic Cooperation, Health for SDC, praised the evolution of openIMIS from a health insurance management system into a flexible, interoperable digital public good that offers diverse solutions in health, social protection, and perhaps in the future within humanitarian contexts.

Laure Rogès, Head of Sector for Inequality, Social Protection, Disability and Demography at the European Commission (EU INTPA)  underlined the EU’s commitment to digital transformation in social protection as part of the Global Gateway agenda on digitalization, a core element of which is support of the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI). One element of the DCI’s work is the development of international technical standards which allow Digital Public Goods like openIMIS to interoperate.Ms Rogès also echoed Ms Baumberger in recognizing the potential of linking humanitarian assistance with social protection systems, based on open-source digital tools. This connection can bridge short-term relief with longer-term support for resilience building efforts.

The openIMIS Initiative in 2025

An overview of openIMIS (openIMIS in brief) and the initiative’s recent progress was given by Saurav Bhattarai, Team Lead openIMIS Initiative, Global Alliances for Social Protection at GIZ. openIMIS is used in 14 countries to manage over 15 different programs, serving 36.4 million beneficiaries. This represents a rise of more than 11 million beneficiaries since the previous Stakeholder Conference in November 2024. Multiple teams around the world contribute new functionalities to openIMIS, and these are grouped into solutions for challenges across the domain of social protection. 
 

Session 1: Solutions in Action

Session 1 of the conference focused on examples of current implementations of openIMIS solutions. Facilitated by Uwe Wahser, IT Specialist at the openIMIS Coordination Desk, GIZ, the session began with a short video showcasing different functionalities being used or which have been added to the software by teams in Nepal, Lao PDR, Cameroon, Nigeria, Burundi, and São Tomé and Príncipe. These functionalities are packaged in solutions for health insurance, voucher schemes, cash transfer, employment injury insurance, and beneficiary registries. Far from a complete or static list, this range of solutions can and should be added to and developed.

Md. Mahbubul Haque, Advisor-ICT and Digitalization, Social Protection for Workers in the Textile and Leather Sector for GIZ Bangladesh then provided an in-depth look at the example of the Employment Injury Insurance solution in Bangladesh (presentation slides), where openIMIS supports the Employment Injury Scheme Pilot. Bangladesh was able to tailor the system to the programme’s needs by adapting existing openIMIS functionalities, and creating new ones.

View the recording:
•    Full session I (32 min)
•    Bangladesh presentation (16 min)

•    Solutions in action (6 min)
 

Session 2: Responding to Climate-Related Risks and Humanitarian Crisis

Session 2 comprised a panel discussion facilitated by Frank Erkenbrecher, Advisor, Sector Initiative Social Protection for GIZ. The discussion considered  the diverse and evolving requirements of climate-related and humanitarian response efforts, and the ways in which digital solutions enhance their speed, targeting, accountability and thus, overall effectiveness.

Emrys Schoemaker, Senior Director, Policy and Advisory at Caribou, opened the discussion, suggesting that the current, changing political economy and declining funding can be seen as an opportunity to “do more with less”; to collaborate to avoid duplicative systems and bridge gaps between developmental and humanitarian assistance.

Gabriele Erba, Beneficiary Data Lead, Cash Assistance Hub - Social Protection at UNICEF, highlighted how providing humanitarian assistance can present an opportunity to strengthen systems, a process which digital public goods enable. In Sri Lanka, UNICEF has used their digital tool Humanitarian Cash Operations and Programme Ecosystem (HOPE) to support the transition from an in-kind project to a cash transfer scheme for the nutrition needs of children and families, which in turn is informing the approach to digitalization for a preexisting, complementary pregnancy voucher programme.

Youssouf Zaarour, Digital Social Protection Advisor at the World Food Programme (WFP), argued that even as crises become more frequent and protracted, digital transformation can enable a shift from reacting to shocks to managing risk. One example is the WFPs ongoing work to strengthen early warning anticipatory action in the Disaster Risk Management sector in Rwanda, using AI solutions to connect surface data and earth observation data with vulnerability data, giving disaster risk agencies the ability to better prepare for and respond to crises.

Sarah Coll-Black, Senior Social Protection Specialist, Social Protection and Jobs at World Bank, echoed the importance of a shift towards strengthening systems that anticipate and are resistant to shocks, both in terms of swiftness and scalability of response, and insulation from the physical risks of climate impacts, such as investing in back-up electricity systems to protect the digital solutions needed at times of crisis. Another key lesson from World Bank’s work in fragile contexts is the importance of identifying and investing in high-value functions such as digital IDs and management information systems, and in parallel investing in the governance of these systems—an area where open-source solutions prove vital.

Panelists agreed that a collaborative approach was increasingly important, particularly in addressing the problems of data silos and duplicative systems. Mr. Erba advocated for an active community of practice for digitalization of social protection systems and humanitarian assistance to create a coordinated approach, sighting the 2024 AI in Social Protection conference as an effective example. Ms. Coll-Black acknowledged the time and effort required to enable this level of collaboration, starting with the need for a common vocabulary for meaningful discussion. Citing recent humanitarian responses in South Sudan as an example of agencies effectively sharing systems and linking services, Mr. Schoemaker advocated for the importance of inter-organization governance agreements, such as the WFP/UNHCR Data Sharing agreement, which facilitate such sharing at a global level.

Acknowledging that vital decisions in humanitarian responses are made by people, who may have greater or lesser capacity, understanding, and available time, one key suggestion was the creation of a sufficiently accessible marketplace of digital public goods. Such a marketplace would help to make a range of technical solutions available to more people, develop a shared understanding of the scope of each tool, showcase success stories, and share learnings.

In the following Q&A session, Mauro Clerici, Social Protection Officer at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) agreed with the panel on the importance of interoperability and using Digital Public Goods in the Humanitarian sector. Mr. Clerici also reiterated the call for clear data sharing agreements, citing experience of the WFP/UNHCR agreement enabling rapid ‘sign-off’ within two weeks for work in Libya. This is in contrast to six months in a context where data-sharing agreements are not in place.

View the recording:
•    Full session II panel discussion (60 min)

Conclusions and outcomes

In a live poll conducted by the openIMIS coordination desk, conference attendees indicated high levels of interest in continuing the discussion around digital tools in the humanitarian sector, with interoperability expressed as a key area of interest.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Bhattarai thanked participants and indicated the Initiative’s willingness to be one facilitator in continuing this exchange of ideas, and in building a community of practice which would enable agencies and organizations to work together towards a clear, shared goal; creating efficient, effective, resilient systems which can, as Ms Rogès articulated, “serve people in times of stability, and protect them when crises strike.”