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Overview

A.  Project Description 

About UNCDF

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for low-income population in the world’s 46 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

About the Better Than Cash Alliance

Hosted by UNCDF, the Better Than Cash Alliance’s mission is to catalyze a global movement from cash to digital payments to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Specific benefits include efficiency, transparency, women’s economic participation and financial inclusion, helping build economies that are digital and inclusive.

The Alliance has 80 members, including national governments from Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, companies and international organizations which have committed to digitizing payments.

The Secretariat works with the Alliance members on their journey to digitize payments by:

• Providing advisory services based on member priorities.
• Sharing action-oriented research and fostering peer learning.
• Conducting advocacy at national, regional, and global level.

Billions of dollars in cash payments and transfers are made daily in emerging and developing economies, including payment of salaries, social welfare and relief, payments to suppliers, remittances. The problems with these cash payments include a lack of transparency, accountability, and security, as well as inefficiency. Individuals who receive cash payments are often part of the 1.7 billion excluded from the formal financial sector, the majority of whom are women. This means they are excluded from access to a range of appropriate and affordable financial services to help them save safely take advantage of economic opportunities and reduce their vulnerability to risk.

Shifting these payments from cash to digital has the potential to improve the lives of low-income people, particularly women, while giving governments, the development community, and the private sector a more transparent, time and cost efficient, and often-safer means of disbursing payments.

The Better Than Cash Alliance Team’s Core Values are the following:

• Achieving together.
• Striving for excellence.
• Service oriented.
• Results oriented.

Background

Crises, conflicts, and climate shocks are becoming more frequent and costly, leading to a growing demand for humanitarian transfers. Commitments were made to increase the use and coordination of cash-based programming in the 2016 Grand Bargain. In 2017, the UN Working Group on Common Treasury Services identified a need to increase members’ capacities, and invited the Better Than Cash Alliance to share good practices in payment digitization.

In 2018, common strategies, policies and business models of UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP were assessed. The report recognizes the potential for collaboration between UN agencies, and highlights that for this collaboration to be successful, it needs to entails a commonality of purpose, concerted leadership by country representatives and their teams, previous successful collaboration experience that underpins more ambitious collaboration models, physical proximity of collaborating entities, and a strong focus on dynamics that are relevant to the local context. In parallel, the 2018 Statement from the Principals of OCHA, UNHCR, WFP, and UNICEF on Cash Assistance (UNCCS) marked a formal commitment to an inclusive common cash system. It was time to collaborate to maximize impact. However, challenges among UN agencies persist in terms of different dynamics between agencies and donors, different platforms, operating manuals, organizational cultures and mandates, and the diversity of local contexts, actors, and program objectives involved in operationalizing digital transfers. One way to overcome those challenges is to test in-country effective collaboration through joint initiatives between UN agencies, as in the case of Colombia, which has been a member country since 2012. 

In June 2021, and in the context of the greater collaboration between UN agencies, the Better Than Cash Alliance, together with WFP, UNHCR, and UNICEF Colombia and the technical support of Marulanda Consultores, launched the Initiative: Digitization of Humanitarian Payments for Venezuelan Migrants in Colombia. This was followed in 2021, by the Government of Colombia (GoC) announcement about the implementation of the Temporary Protection Statute for the Venezuelan migrants (ETPV by its Spanish acronym). The decree allows migrants who register with the Colombian Government and are granted access to the Permiso de Protección Temporal (PPT) to reside for ten years and access to basic rights and services such as education, healthcare, social protection, decent work, and financial services.

The initiative includes two phases:

Phase I) Mapping, research, report development, and dissemination to respective partners and stakeholders. This Phase I has been completed and is not in the scope of the TOR.

Phase II) Digitization initiative (the Pilot) to support the digitization of humanitarian payments within the framework of the country and the regional migratory response and social protection prioritization. 

Furthermore, the pilot has three stages:

• Stage 1: Conceptualization and guidelines for the design
• Stage 2: Detailed design
• Stage 3: Implementation and lessons for future scale

The general characteristics of the pilot are:

• Agencies participating: 2 (WFP- UNHCR)
• Humanitarian programs: 3
• Total number of households/beneficiaries: 2,550/10,200
• Number of disbursements through mobile wallets: 6 maximums
• Periodicity of disbursements: Monthly (WFP) and Bimonthly (UNHCR)
• Number of municipalities: 7
  • WFP: Cali, Yumbo, Buenaventura and Bogotá (subject to changes).
  • UNHCR: Medellín, Cúcuta or Barranquilla, and Santa Marta or Cali.
• Target population: Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees with PPT.

During the first and second stages of the pilot certain processes have been harmonized among WFP and UNHCR. During the pilot approximately 2,500 beneficiaries from WFP and 50 beneficiaries from UNHCR will receive monetary transfers under UN Principles on Responsible Digital Payments through digital wallets. These Principles define who needs to be responsible, what it means to be responsible and how to be responsible during the entire financial institutions´ client journey. Among the Nine Principles, the Number 3: “Prioritizing Women” can help to ensure initiatives can tackle the systemic and organizational biases that women suffer. Closing the gender gap will require transformational measures that prioritize women and redress their systemic exclusion. Particularly, service design needs to be gender intentional.

It must be underlined that Marulanda Consultores, a highly regarded consulting firm with vast experience in humanitarian initiatives in Colombia, has helped guide stages one and two of the pilots and will be involved during stage three, the implementation of the pilot. In addition, and as input to determine the theory of change, the Agencies will provide its monitoring and evaluation (M&E) program and resources available that may apply and may be shared on the pilot specific humanitarian programs, disbursements, and locations, among other relevant information once an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) has been signed.

Advancing digital financial inclusion for vulnerable populations

In the past decade, the Government of Colombia (GoC) has worked towards advancing digital financial inclusion. First, G2P payments, mainly Conditional Cash Transfers, have been paid to accounts since 2007. The GoC has paved the way for financial inclusion by developing an enabling regulatory framework, one of them being the authorization of mobile wallets and simplified KYC processes, which facilitated financial inclusion. Colombia has the third largest Fintech Sector in Latin America. Regulatory changes authorized e-money issuers in 2015, and around four companies started operations in 2018. On the other hand, the low-value payment infrastructure has modernized with increased competition being also promoted from the regulatory side. In fact, a Private Faster Payments Clearing House is now live to which old (traditional banks) and new players (Fintech sector) are strengthening interoperability.

Colombia also has developed a strong last-mile agent network over the last fifteen years that reaches even and the most remote geographies. Thus, changes in regulations in 2020 also introduced roving agents. In addition, the country has introduced a digital ID, as well as a unified social registry (2020) and flexible Treasury norms that allow FinTechs (e-money issuers) to participate in the delivery of G2P programs. in December 2020, the Financial Regulation Unit (URF) published a working document on Open Banking and Financial Portability. This document includes a preliminary implementation proposal aimed to ignite the discussion with stakeholders on how to advance the financial portability agenda in the Colombian ecosystem. In 2021, with the support of the Alliance, the URF developed a series of workshops with stakeholders to understand barriers to the implementation of the financial portability model. The inputs from this exercise informed the design of a portability model, which is key for the introduction of customer choice in G2P in 2021, the GoC started to test customer choice with 40,000 beneficiaries of G2P programs. This initiative is ongoing.

Also, last year, the GoC designed and implemented, with the Alliance's support, a COVID-19 emergency scheme, reaching 3 million families that were not previously covered by any social assistance transfer program, out of these 3 million households, around 10,000 were Venezuelan migrants. In addition, the URF within the Ministry of Finance is leading an Intra- Government Agencies Technical Working Group (WG) focused on Financial Inclusion for Venezuelan Migrants. They are joined by Banca de las Oportunidades, Migración Colombia (Colombia Immigration Office), DNP (Department of National Planning), and the President's office. The close working relationship between the Alliance and the URF ensures the work with the UN agencies and the WG is interwoven, and lessons learned are shared.

Migración Colombia works with credit bureaus so that FSPs can validate the identity of migrants with the new ID (PPT) to allow for the remote opening of deposit accounts.

Key players in the Venezuelan Humanitarian Crisis

1. UN Humanitarian Agencies: Before the difficulties that Venezuelan migrants face when trying to obtain identification documents, these entities have developed independent beneficiary identification and registration systems. In the framework of an MOU, WFP and the Consortiums use the Unique Identifier for de-duplication. (see below).

• WFP: The WFP in Colombia manages to assist more than 380,000 people per month, of which approximately 214,000 receive cash transfers in 2021. Of the total, 178,000 are Venezuelan migrants. The WFP’s beneficiary information and transfer management system are SCOPE, a cloud-based database that stores information on who the beneficiaries are and the assistance they are entitled to and can issue payment instructions to financial service providers. In 2021, WFP assisted more than 680.000 people with cash-based transfers. To December 2021, SCOPE has 1,016.506 registered beneficiaries.
• UNHCR: The agency is using registration instruments and its PRIMES identity management ecosystem, based on the coordination of territorial intervention from GIFMM. 60% of its beneficiaries do not have the identification required by financial institutions. As of December 2020, UNHCR had benefited more than 340,700 Venezuelans and Colombians who returned from Venezuela through various initiatives. In 2020, UNHCR assisted 19,500 families through multipurpose cash transfers.
•  UNICEF: In response to its vocation to care for children, UNICEF has developed several initiatives to care for migrant children. In partnership with World Vision, during 2020, they implemented the pilot of a cash transfer program linked to the Learning Circles initiative, with which they managed to benefit 731 families by channeling USD 282,000. MovilRed, Banco de Occidente, and Davivienda supported them with money orders and prepaid cards.

1. NGOs: Collaborative Cash Delivery Network – CCD. This network consisting of eight International NGOs was created in Colombia in 2019. This network offers internal and external technical coordination and data exchange agreements. In mid-2019, CCD members organized themselves into two consortia to formulate proposals to be funded by BHA / USAID: Consortium CUA-ADN Dignidad (Action Against Hunger, Norwegian Refugee Council, Danish Refugee Council) and Consortium Ven Esperanza (Mercy Corps, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, World Vision). The two consortiums operate the program to serve migrants, returnees, or the host population in vulnerable situations, whose contract was extended until December 2022. While CUA-ADN Dignidad seeks to reach 209,000 people with a budget of USD 62 million between December 2019 and December 2022, Ven Esperanza has the goal of assisting 250,000 migrants or returned Colombians.

Of the total of 2.4 million payments made to migrants, refugees, returnees, and the host community, between January and August 2021, UN agencies represent 61%, the Ven Esperanza consortium 26%, CUA-ADN Dignidad 11%, and other organizations 2%.

Objectives

As stated before, the stages 1 and 2 of the pilot have already taken place. Therefore, the current intervention takes place during Stage 3: Implementation and lessons for future scale. This TOR´s purpose is to incorporate, as part of the pilot, the participation of a Consulting firm who will provide recommendations in accordance with UN Principles for Responsible Digital Payments on scaling up the use of mobile wallets for the Humanitarian Operation in Colombia and across the region. 

In this sense, the objective of this intervention is to analyze the agencies´ humanitarian cash transfers through mobile wallets to improve the satisfaction of beneficiaries during their client journey as financial service users while embedding responsible digital payments to reach beneficiaries´ protection and satisfaction for an eventual scale-up. Such analysis must include usage and challenges of mobile wallets by beneficiaries, and the deepening of financial inclusion, among the other issues covered in the questions posted above.

During a qualitative and quantitative data collection period of five months, the Consulting Firm will document and answer the following questions:

1. What are the challenges and opportunities, for the Agencies, in the customer journey experienced by beneficiaries receiving cash transfers through mobile wallets?
2. What are the beneficiaries needs and behavioural challenges and opportunities in terms of their financial inclusion potential through the Agencies´ monetary transfers with mobile wallets?
3. What are the perceived intrahousehold changes -if any- in terms of the following topics, but not limited to them:
   1. decision-making power for women receiving cash transfers digitally.
   2. access and control of resources.

In addition, the Consulting Firm will take into consideration a set of indicators determined by the Agencies to understand access and usage of financial services by the beneficiaries, as well as other behavioural effects and or impact on gender equality. Therefore, the Consulting Firm must derive insights for the development of a Recommendations Report. The goal of this Report is to improve the beneficiary client journey experience and financial inclusion potential, through mobile wallets, during the scaling of humanitarian monetary transfers as mentioned. It must be underlined that the Report must include a gender lens.

The elaboration of such final Report will entail defining the learning activities in terms of the Theory of Change, consultation with different stakeholders, workshops, inputs from Agencies and the financial service provider, data collection, beneficiary customer journey analysis, and the development and delivery of the presentation of reports.

It is important to mention that Marulanda Consultores has been involved in the conceptualization and design phases of the pilot and will be involved throughout the whole pilot process to evaluate the challenges and opportunities in the design and implementation of the humanitarian cash transfers programmes with mobile wallets.

B.            Scope of Work

This entire scope of work will be delivered in close partnership with and under the supervision of the Initiative´s Steering Committee: Agencies and BTCA. The Better Than Cash Alliance will facilitate the dialogue between the Consulting Firm and the Agencies participating in the Pilot through an initial introduction and Presentation of the parties involved. It must be underlined that the Alliance will coordinate all meetings necessary with the Agencies, while the Consulting firm will be responsible for having interviews with all stakeholders considered in the Workplan, as well as all material to be presented during the Workshops and PowerPoint presentations which are related to the activities in the TOR.

Throughout the work done by the Consulting Firm, Marulanda Consultores will also be contributing its wealth of experience in humanitarian responsible digital payments, especially taking into consideration women’s barriers for digitalization, as they represent more than fifty percent of humanitarian beneficiaries.

The expected scope of work is as follows:

The Consulting firm´s work will begin with a face-to-face meeting with the Alliance, Agencies, and Marulanda Consultores. During the kick-off: i) the Consulting firm will present its technical proposal, and ii) the Agencies will present their humanitarian programs and share their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) procedures and resources.

1. Expected key responsibilities and specific deliverables.

The following are the proposed objectives and outcomes for the Scope of Work:

1. Workplan with learning actions. To develop the Workplan, the consulting firm must first create and participate in delivering two Workshops to the Alliance, the Agencies, and Marulanda Consultores. The workshops must be, at the most, two weeks apart.
   • Given the goals, the consulting firm must obtain from both workshop sessions the necessary information and insights on the pilot to determine the learning actions to develop the Workplan to reach the established objectives.
   • The learning actions must help answer the questions stated previously.

Key responsibilities

1. Create, organize, and deliver two workshops, as well as to participate in the discussions and make comments given the Consulting firm´s experience to ensure a successful Workplan. The learning actions must take into consideration field data collection during humanitarian disbursements number 5 and 6 (the last two out of 6), as well as from the beneficiaries, for three months afterwards.
2. Develop the Workplan
3. Create and deliver the Workplan´s Presentation to the Alliance, Agencies, and Marulanda Consultores.
4. Integrate into the final Workplan the comments and observations received in writing from the Alliance.
5. Execute the Workplan.
6. Learning Report. Once the Workplan has been executed by the Consulting firm, a Learning Report must be developed and delivered.
   • The Learning Report must consider:
     • issues that will help scale the pilot.
     • improve the beneficiaries´ customer journey.
     • financial inclusion.
     • intrahousehold changes in terms of decision-making power for women receiving cash transfers digitally.

Key responsibilities

1. Learning Report. The Learning Report must be in a Word document.
2. Integrate into the final Learning Report the comments and observations received in writing from the Alliance.
3. Create and deliver a Power Point presentation on the Learning Report´s highlights to the Alliance, Agencies, and Marulanda Consultores.
4. Recommendations Report. Once the Learning Report has been approved by the Alliance, the consulting firm must develop a Recommendations Report and a presentation with the highlights.
   • The Recommendations Report must cover:
     • Agencies´ operation and relationship with humanitarian beneficiaries.
     • Financial institution participation, operation with the Agencies, humanitarian beneficiaries’ financial journey and financial inclusion.
     • Why mobile wallets work better than accounts or cash, and if it does not work better, opportunities for improvement.
     • How mobile wallets can help women make better decisions for their household finances.
     • How to improve the programs to include a gender lens in the delivery mechanism to ensure they meet women’s needs.
     • Stakeholders’ participation.
     • Public policy.

        Key responsibilities

1. Recommendations Report. The Recommendations Report must be in a Word document.
2. Integrate into the final recommendations Report the comments and observations received in writing from the Alliance.
3. Create and deliver a Power Point presentation on the Recommendations Report´s highlights to the Alliance, Agencies, and Marulanda Consultores.

Not everyone who registers will obtain the PPT, it’s up to the Government who gets it and who doesn’t.

Four number of family members per household.

De-duplication corresponds to the process agreed between organizations for the identification and management of duplicate beneficiaries. This process includes the planning, design, verification, and implementation of a common procedure among implementing organizations to detect beneficiaries receiving monetary transfers (vouchers and cash) from two or more organizations. The code initially developed by the CCD for its platform was re-engineered and improved by WFP and the CCD in the framework of an MOU, also signed by UNHCR. A platform has also been developed by WFP to perform deduplication using the unique identifier.

Please refer to the Request for Proposals document attached for more information on the consultancy and the application procedure.