Innovation and Digitalization in Social Protection Services in Ukraine - Peer-to-Peer fundraising via eDopomoga

Introduction

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Kostiantyn Koshelenko the Deputy Minister of Social Policy for Digital Transformation at Ukraine's Ministry of Social Protection (MOSP), in my role as a deployed expert from the Social Protection Technical Assistance, Advice, and Resources (STAAR Facility)

During the meeting, Kostiantyn and his team shared how the Ukrainian government has been working to respond to the significant disruptions in government social protection systems and the rapidly changing context since the escalation in the conflict on Feb. 24. Building on the work done by the MOSP in 2020 and 2021 to enable the digitalization of the social protection system, particularly through a Single Unified Social and Beneficiary Registry and the UISSS integrated social protection system. I was extremely interested to hear how his team had enabled the rapid rollout of new systems for enabling online and offline registration for programs, as well as utilizing digitalization developments to provide new services to Ukrainian residents.

One of the most innovative of these systems is the eDopomoga (There is Help) targeting and assistance platform. This was established on April 28th 2022 to meet the urgent needs of citizens affected or forced to relocate. The project's main goal is to bring together the capabilities of the country, international non-governmental organizations, and volunteers to provide targeted humanitarian assistance to war victims and internally displaced people. 

The eDopomoga platform has three components, focusing on state, volunteer and international assistance. The first component provides IDPs information on their entitlements from the state and how to access them. The second component of volunteers enables direct peer-to-peer support to households. It is focused on transfers from Ukrainians as well as overseas nationals direct to individual Ukrainians. The third international assistance component is for citizens of Ukraine impacted by the conflict to register a request for assistance by humanitarian actors. 

Government-enabled Peer-to-Peer fundraising

The second of the three components is the volunteer component, which enables direct peer-to-peer support to households, which piqued my interest. This is due to the fact that, while the concept of a peer-to-peer fundraising platform is not novel, the fact that this platform was created by a state, which ensures the security of household data and the transfer of funds, and that it had successfully be developed and rolled out in a matter of months was in my experience unpreceded, and worth I thought highlighting.

The eDopomoga system's volunteer component found ast https://social.edopomoga.gov.ua/ allows for direct peer-to-peer support for households. It works by allowing Ukrainian citizens to create an online profile with information about themselves and the assistance they require. They can ask for help with one of three things: food, clothing, and hygiene products, medical products, or fuel. A citizen may apply for help once per week. 

A global or national volunteer can then create an online profile, review the open applications for assistance, select one or more to assist, select a donation amount, and pay. The eDopromoga system then generates a voucher for each Ukrainian citizen with the monetary value of the donation and sends the details to the citizen via SMS. The money for the purchased certificate is also transferred to a store, pharmacy, or gas station by the system. As a result, the donation is already available for use. If it is not used within 30 days, it is returned to the cabinet, and the benefactor may choose another recipient to whom it is given. The transfer of donated money is made in full (without commissions) and without intermediaries, with the MOSP covering the costs of the system and transfers. 

The citizen can then use the voucher to purchase goods at one of the MOSP partners retail networks stores or pharmacies. The shop or pharmacy then confirms that the voucher was used and what was purchased, and the eDopromoga system informs the Global Volunteer that their voucher was used and what was purchased.A comprehensive overview is provided below.

The voucher can only be used to purchase goods or medicines from platform partners' stores or pharmacies. Currently, these are "Silpo", "Le Silpo", "Fora", "Thrash!Thrash!" and Fozzy C&C. In addition, pharmacies: 911 and 3i.21. The MOSP is open to expansion, and their ideal goal is for all Ukrainian retail chains and stores to be able to connect via a simple procedure. This is an area they are working on in collaboration with aggregators.

This system has supported 5888 households with a total of 1,721,900 Ukrainian Hryvnia, corresponding to an estimated 46,629 US Dollar

Mastercard is supporting the Social component by increasing the amount of the benefit (Prepayment for the goods) if the donation is made with a Mastercard issued by any bank in the world between 01.07.2022 and 30.11.2022 inclusive. So, if a person donates 200 UAH, MasterCard will top up 50 UAH, and so on.

Next Steps 

Deputy Minister Kostiantyn Koshelenko is rightly proud of this system, and he and the rest of the MOSP want to develop and expand it further, so they are actively seeking international partners to help them expand and roll out this and other system components.

Looking ahead, they hope to share the lessons learned and systems developed for the eDopomoga system with other countries facing a humanitarian disaster after the current crisis is over.