One of the many issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic is the fact that a lot of people worldwide are only one crisis away from poverty or destitution. Social protection is one of the ways to prevent this or at least cushion the blow. INCLUDE’s COVID-19 research showed that data and information for speedy and successful scaling of social protection are currently missing or outdated in many African countries. One solution to this problem is to develop single registries. This two-pager therefore dives into this and offers insights as to how countries could make use of single registries to improve their social protection efforts.