The Welfare Benefits Board undertakes its mandate through a new, electronic safety net delivery system, in collaboration with the ministries responsible for the main welfare programs. With the view to address the existing and future challenges posed on the social protection system of the country in line with the objectives of the Welfare Benefits Board, a Social Safety Nets Project (SSNP) has been newly established under the purview of the Ministry of Finance. SSNP has been designed to achieve a set of results in the agreed result framework of SSNP and with an implementation period of five years (2016 – 2021). The project will benefit around 1.8 million households, the current combined caseload of programs to be included under the Welfare Benefits System. At the end of the project all beneficiaries will benefit from the improvements made in the service delivery system and efficient payment.

The project has three components. The first two components will follow a results-based financing modality with disbursements made upon achievement of specific results measured by disbursement-linked indicators (DLIs). The eligible expenditure program (EEP) will be cash transfers paid to eligible beneficiaries of the Samurdhi program, the largest cash transfer program in Sri Lanka, which will be made more equitable, efficient and transparent through the achievement of the DLIs. The third component will finance Technical Assistance to strengthen the GoSL’s capacity to achieve the DLI targets, conduct monitoring and planning, and provide for incremental operating costs.

For this purpose, all the Welfare Benefits schemes needed to be computerized. Therefore two Management Assistants (Focal Point Officers) in each Divisional Secretariat were nominated by relevant Divisional Secretaries to the MIS Unit at their division. In order to build their capacity a series of Training Programmes were designed. Island wide Awareness Programmes were conducted for the Focal Point Officers to get a brief idea about the new system to be developed. The objective of this awareness programme is to give a brief introduction to Social Registry Information System (SRIS) and roles and responsibilities towards discharging their duties as being the Focal Point Officers of the Management Information System (MIS) Unit at respective Divisional Secretariats.