MANAGEMENT OF BENEFICIARIES REGISTRY

The NCTO MIS is the administrative backbone of the National Cash Transfer Project. It is the tool that facilitates the collection, processing, management and dissemination of data essential for program operations, accountability, and policy-making and the platform through which program information will travel across different institutional levels.

Its fundamental purpose is to ensure that each process needed to run the NCTO is carried out correctly for each stakeholder. It is also the main source of data for program monitoring; and transforms data into useful information for management use.

The NCTO MIS would therefore ensure accurate and

timely management of high volume of beneficiaries data, often across multiple sites and levels of program implementation, minimize error, fraud and corruption by warning end-users when data discrepancies or violations occur, as well as to better integration of social protection policies.

The SCTU and NCTO MIS will support beneficiaries registry. The beneficiaries registry will house the following beneficiaries dataset:• Eligible Households data• Caregivers and alternates data• Enrolled beneficiaries dataThe structure of the beneficiaries registry at state and federal levels is designed to be such that the datasets are disaggregated into states, LGAs and Communities for easy access, management and control.

It is also pertinent to mention that for the database of enrolled beneficiaries, the caregivers must be filtered and kept separately from the alternates for ease of access, data control and use.

SCTU MIS SCTU MIS

NCTO MIS

SBRSBR

NBR

SCTU MIS

SBR

SCTU MIS

SBR

• NCTO MIS mines eligible HHs from NSR and stores in the National Beneficiaries Registry (NBR).

• NCTO shares eligible HHs list with SCTUs.• SCTU MIS verifies HHs list with SOCU SSR and

stores in the State Beneficiaries Registry(SBR).• SCTUs share HHs list with CTFs for community

disclosure • CTFs disclose HHs list in communities for

validation• CTFs facilitate identification of caregivers and

alternates by HHs

• CTFs collate caregivers and alternates (beneficiaries) list and send to SCTU MIS staff for entry into beneficiaries template in defined order of state, LGAs and communities and on completion store in State Beneficiaries Registry.

• SCTU MIS staff will collate and share caregivers and alternates dataset with NCTO MIS staff.

• NCTO MIS staff will collate states beneficiaries dataset and store in National Beneficiaries Registry (NBR).

• NCTO Payment unit will collect caregivers and alternates data from NBR and share with PSPs for enrolment.

• On completion of enrolment, PSPs will share enrolled beneficiaries data with NCTO for verification.

• After verification, enrolled beneficiaries data are stored in the NBR and shared with SCTU for storage in SBR.

• Currently the SBR and NBR are being collated in Excel flat files and disaggregated into states, LGAs and communities.

• The Excel files, the SBR and NBR are currently being housed in the PCs of MIS staff.

• The use of Excel platform for collating beneficiaries data has its own challenges: a: easy to manipulate data without audit trail b: prone to human error, fraud and corruption c: prone to loss of data integrity d: very difficult to verify, handle and manage

large volumes of beneficiaries data

At state and federal levels, the responsibility of maintaining the integrity of beneficiaries’ database lies with the MIS staff, the Heads of SCTU and NCTO Project Coordinator. However, this function is delegated more to the MIS Staff, without prejudice to other administrative structures.

Data Integrity and SecurityThe MIS staff in order to protect the integrity and provide security to sensitive beneficiaries data against corruption and loss must:

• Not disclose personal system passwords or other security details to other staff or external person; or use anyone else’s login.

• Not to leave Personal Computers (PCs) unattended to without logging off.

• Check external devices for viruses and malware, even if the device is perceived clean before allowing access to PC.

• Protect their PCs with licensed Internet based anti-virus software and update them regularly to guard against internet spyware, malware and other system threats.

• Harden their passwords using conventional techniques to avoid easy violation.

• Physically secure their PCs and database platforms from damage or loss to human error, technical problems, or natural disasters.

• Backup programme data regularly in external devices and store in secure and fireproof environment to guard against data loss to corruption, theft, fire or flood.

• Implement strict rules to limit access to sensitive database platforms to avoid theft, unauthorised manipulations or sabotage.

• NCTO MIS team is currently working on converting the NBR from the vulnerable Excel flat file format to a more formidable and secure Relational Database Management Platform(SQL).

• Most of beneficiaries data have been converted already into relational database format while still working on the remaining to have a full database that is safe, secure, more manageable and easily scalable.

• The conversion process is being done in parallel with the development of an interim MIS solution.

• MIS ToR has been developed and approved by WB to procure a consultant for the design and development of technical specifications for the MIS. We are awaiting the commencement of the procurement process.

• The full implementation of the MIS is expected to take about 18 months but in the interim, the NCTO MIS team is designing an interim MIS solution to help run the major operations of the program (NBR, Payment, M&E, Finance) until the establishment of a substantive MIS platform.