Abstract

Despite digital advancements in social protection systems aimed at improving citizen welfare, persistent challenges in accessibility, inclusivity, and user experience continue to marginalize vulnerable populations and undermine system efficiency. Current digital systems lack adequate interoperability, verification, and security, hindering effective service delivery and contradicting the core objectives of social protection. This scoping review addresses critical knowledge gaps by systematically mapping existing literature on design principles for digital social protection systems, synthesizing fragmented knowledge between technical and human-centred perspectives. Following a guided PCC (population, concept, context) framework, literature from 2018-2025 was extracted from five databases (Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost, JSTOR, ScienceDirect), yielding 21 articles through multiple screening phases. Data mapping revealed three central themes: transparency, user-centric design, and digital literacy. Findings identified critical deficiencies in verification, security, and fragmented databases that contribute to inclusion and exclusion errors, enabling fraud by ineligible recipients while excluding deserving beneficiaries. This review provides a comprehensive knowledge landscape of design principles, informing future research and practice toward more balanced, human-centred approaches that prevent marginalization and enable digital social protection systems to fulfil their intended purpose of protecting vulnerable populations. The review concludes that human-centered design principles must supersede technical priorities to ensure digital social protection systems fulfil their poverty reduction mandate without perpetuating inequality.

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