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Good practice Imported

Serbia's Social Card — A World Bank-Backed Welfare Algorithm That Excluded a Third of Recipients

Serbia · Belgrade · See the Serbia profile · See the Belgrade profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 83% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Serbia's algorithmic 'Social Card', built with World Bank support since 2022 to score welfare eligibility, has disproportionately excluded Roma people and people with disabilities; by 2025 nearly a third of previously eligible recipients had lost benefits, Amnesty found.

almost 1 in 3 (~33%) %
Financially disadvantaged people left without social assistance (as of March 2025)
15 days
Appeal window after removal (ongoing)
3 months
Mandatory wait before reapplication (ongoing)
Serbia's Social Card — A World Bank-Backed Welfare Algorithm That Excluded a Third of Recipients

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs (Serbia) / World Bank
Period
2022–2025
Keywords
social welfare, algorithmic eligibility scoring, poverty targeting

Context

Serbia's Social Card (Socijalna karta) is a World Bank-backed digital registry and scoring system that has determined eligibility for social assistance nationwide since its 2022 rollout, designed to make welfare targeting fairer and more transparent by automatically cross-referencing applicants' data across government registers.

Activities

The system automatically cross-references applicant data across government registers to score eligibility for social assistance nationwide.

Results

Amnesty International's 2023 report 'Trapped by Automation' found the opaque, error-prone system has disproportionately cut off Roma people and people with disabilities, often over minor or misclassified income — in one documented case, a one-off €170 funeral-expense donation from a human rights organisation was counted as income and disqualified the recipient, Mirjana, from further support. The A11 Initiative for Economic and Social Rights found that, three years into implementation, almost one in three financially disadvantaged people had been left without social assistance as of March 2025 — evidence the exclusions are systemic rather than isolated errors. Affected applicants have 15 days to appeal a removal and must then wait three months before reapplying.

Conclusions

The World Bank has promoted similar registry-based eligibility models in Jordan, Lebanon, Haiti, Nigeria, Morocco, Angola, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, making Serbia's unresolved errors a cautionary reference point for those transfers. This is a documented case of algorithmic harm: honest reporting requires stating that the evidence here is of exclusion and discrimination, not of a benefit delivered.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M) — Not disclosed in available sources beyond being World Bank-backed.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Nationwide rollout since 2022; systemic exclusion pattern documented as of March 2025 (~3 years into operation).
Staffing & skills
Serbia's Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, World Bank (technical/financial backing)

Conditions for success

  • N/A — sources document systemic exclusion rather than conditions that produced success; see failure_modes

Common failure modes

  • Opaque, error-prone scoring disproportionately cut off Roma people and people with disabilities, often over minor or misclassified income (e.g. a one-off €170 funeral donation counted as income)
  • Scoring criteria and underlying data sources have never been published; affected recipients are not told which input triggered exclusion
  • Almost one in three previously eligible, financially disadvantaged people had lost benefits as of March 2025 — a systemic, not isolated, pattern
  • No independent redress mechanism with a track record of correcting errors: a 15-day appeal window followed by a mandatory 3-month reapplication wait offers little real recourse
  • No published data-protection impact assessment found by researchers
  • The same registry-based eligibility model has been promoted by the World Bank in other countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Haiti, Nigeria, Morocco, Angola, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina) without Serbia's errors being resolved first

Where it fits

Governance type
national government, World Bank-backed
Scale
national (sole eligibility gateway)
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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