Digital transformation for humans in complex contexts
MCX Impact is the independent consulting practice of Mary Cox — advising on and implementing digital systems for humanitarian and development programs, because technology is only as powerful as the people and processes built around it.
Services / Expertise
High-level expertise across three connected domains
Digital Health
Digitalization of health campaigns and routine health services, and their integration across the ecosystems of public health.
The systems
Digital health systems span the full ecosystem - applications that guide health workers through service delivery at the point of care; platforms that give monitoring teams the visibility to verify, flag, and act on field trends; national systems that aggregate data for ministry decision-making; and global platforms that track program outcomes over time. Interoperability across these layers, and today\u2019s AI capabilities, enable faster analysis and data continuity and reuse over time.
What’s the Work?
- Replacing paper-based registers and manual data entry with a digital approach that delivers real-time information
- Expanding digital systems into additional domains such as commodity management, planning, GIS, and finance and payment integration
- Building the technical and governance conditions for data sharing between actors
- Ensuring data flows across the ecosystem (interoperability)
Inclusive Financial Services
Bridging program teams and financial services providers to more effectively use digital payment systems that reach populations in crisis and challenging contexts.
The systems
Inclusive financial systems span the full payment ecosystem - beneficiary management systems; data exchanges that connect to payment providers and central banks; and payment rails to consumers and businesses, including bank accounts, mobile money, cash over-the-counter (OTC), vouchers, and crypto wallets. These systems must respond to regulations, know-your-customer/business (KYC/B), and reconciliation requirements that create complexity for actors working with populations in crisis, low-infrastructure environments, or unbanked populations.
What’s the Work?
- Navigating global, local, and anti-money-laundering regulations, KYC/KYB requirements, and data-privacy constraints
- Matching recipients to the right payment channel across multi-modality, multi-channel options
- Keeping transparency and accountability in last-mile payment flows, online and offline
- Reconciliation and reporting for accountability to stakeholders, from communities to donors
- Overseeing integration and implementation of the end-to-end systems, processes, and responsibilities that connect beneficiaries, providers, and program operators
Humanitarian Aid & Development
Technology systems for emergency response, education, livelihoods, and Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) that help actors reach vulnerable populations with speed and accountability.
The systems
Humanitarian technology systems are specialized, fit-for-purpose systems for assistance in complex environments - beneficiary management systems that work online and offline; data analysis and fraud monitoring; integration and information sharing between actors, including referral systems; integration with third-party systems; and multi-actor information systems. They also incorporate unique applications, from educational games in schools to chatbots and human support desks, AI and adaptive technologies for anticipatory action, and systems to deliver critical medicines into hard-to-reach areas. All require an approach that responds to urgency while maintaining accountability to affected communities and stakeholders.
What’s the Work?
- Full-cycle oversight for Cash and Voucher Assistance (see Inclusive Financial Services)
- Advising consortiums and working groups on technology solutions that meet shared and individual objectives
- Defining processes and governance for data interchange between actors, including deduplication and referral mechanisms
- Overseeing design, build, implementation, and adoption of custom or customizable off-the-shelf systems
- Researching emerging technologies and markets to help actors adapt, innovate, and rethink how they provide assistance
Tools & platforms
Fluent across the systems the sector runs on
Portfolio
Selected case studies
Reaching 10 million children in a little over a week requires more than 100,000 health workers to be actively working at one time. In 2023, The Nigerian NMEP made the decision to move from donor-supplied, managed devices to health worker's personal devices. It challenged compatibility and availability assumptions and successfully achieved a campaign scale not previously seen due to device constraints.
About
Mary Cox
Mary has over 25 years of experience leading digital transformation efforts across humanitarian response, digital health, and the private-sector services they count on. Her work has regional depth in Africa and MENA, drawing on ideas and approaches learned from a global portfolio of programs. Her focus has always been less on the technology itself and more on the people and processes that determine its success.
That distinction matters, because the riskiest part of onboarding or changing a digital system isn't the technology. It's whether health workers trust the application enough to use it consistently, whether a consortium can agree on shared data governance, or whether a payment provider's KYC requirements are excluding a key population a program is trying to reach. Mary's value lies in seeing those failure points before they happen, and collaborating across stakeholders so that investments in digital technology are adopted, sustained, and deliver real value for money.
M.B.A. with a specialization in International Development, George Washington University.