Margaret Grosh

Emil Tesliuc

Phillippe Leite

Matthew Wai-Poi

Targeting is a commonly used, but much debated, policy tool within global social assistance practice. Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance: A New Look at Old Dilemmas examines the well-known dilemmas in light of the growing body of experience, new implementation capacities, and the potential to bring new data and data science to bear. The book begins by considering why or whether or how narrowly or broadly to target different parts of social assistance and updates the global empirics around the outcomes and costs of targeting. It illustrates the choices that must be made in moving from an abstract vision to implementable definitions and procedures, and in deciding how the choices should be informed by values, empirics, and context. The importance of delivery systems and processes to distributional outcomes are emphasized, and many facets with room for improvement are discussed. The book also explores the choices between targeting methods and how differences in purposes and contexts shape those. The know-how with respect to the data and inference used by the different household-specific targeting methods is summarized and comprehensively updated, including a focus on “big data†? and machine learning. A primer on measurement issues is included. Key findings include the following: · Targeting selected categories, families, or individuals plays a valuable role within the framework of universal social protection. · Measuring the accuracy and cost of targeting can be done in many ways, and judicious choices require a range of metrics. · Weighing the relatively low costs of targeting against the potential gains is important. · Implementing inclusive delivery systems is critical for reducing errors of exclusion and inclusion. · Selecting and customizing the appropriate targeting method depends on purpose and context; there is no method preferred in all circumstances. · Leveraging advances in technology—ICT, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning—can improve targeting accuracy, but they are not a panacea; better data matters more than sophistication in inference. · Targeting social protection should be a dynamic process.

A New Look at Old Dilemmas

Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance

Carlo Del Ninno

Azedine Ouerghi

Safety nets are noncontributory transfer programs targeted to the poor or vulnerable. They play important roles in social policy. Safety nets redistribute income, thereby immediately reducing poverty and inequality; they enable households to invest in the human capital of their children and in the livelihoods of their earners; they help households manage risk, both ex ante and ex post; and they allow governments to implement macroeconomic or sectoral reforms that support efficiency and growth. To be effective, safety nets must not only be well intended, but also well designed and well implemented. A good safety net system and its programs are tailored to country circumstances, adequate in their coverage and generosity, equitable, cost-effective, incentive compatible, and sustainable. Good safety nets are also dynamic and change over time as the economy changes or as management problems are solved and new standards are set. Drawing on a wealth of research, policy, and operational documents from both academia and the World Bank s work in over 100 countries, For Protection and Promotion provides pragmatic and informed guidance on how to design and implement safety nets, including useful information on how to define eligibility and select beneficiaries, set and pay benefits, and monitor and evaluate programs and systems. The book synthesizes the literature to date and enriches it with new examples on various program options cash transfers (conditional and unconditional), in-kind transfers, price subsidies, fee waivers, and public works. It concludes with a comprehensive diagnostic for fitting safety net systems and programs to specific circumstances.

The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets

For Protection and Promotion

Ruslan Yemtsov

Lucian Pop

This study reviews the role and workings, with their strengths and weaknesses of last-resort income support (LRIS) programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It draws on a combination of household survey and administrative data for a large group of countries and detailed case studies for a smaller number of countries that span the spectrum of the income range in the region. It thus combines the value of wide, comparable multi-country work with that of in-depth, country-specific probing on key themes. The experiences of LRIS programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have demonstrated the technical feasibility of highly efficient poverty-targeted programs in the region. The detailed case studies suggest how programs can improve their coverage, control error and fraud and be implemented effectively in decentralized settings. This experience is pertinent to other regions as well, adding to the know-how for poverty targeting programs in middle and low income countries. Perhaps especially importantly, the book shows that means testing can be accomplished in settings with sizeable informal sectors and at reasonable administrative costs. The study also suggests that currently the role of last resort income support programs within the overall social protection systems of the region is often too small and that their eligibility thresholds should be revised and indexed, so that the programs continue to serve a meaningful swath of the low income households in each country. Moreover the programs can be used as the nexus to weave together a variety of income supports and services for low income households.

A Review of Experience in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Income Support for the Poorest

Kathy Lindert

The Guatemala Poverty Assessment (GUAPA) report was part of a broader, multi-year program of analytical work and technical assistance that signals the commitment of the World Bank to poverty reduction and seeks to: (a) contribute to filling the crucial information gaps on poverty and living conditions; (b) deliver timely outputs on a regular and on-going basis in response to the Government's requests and data availability; and (c) provide longer-term partnering and collaboration on poverty analysis and strategy. One of the major components of the study examined how the limited assets of the poor make them particularly vulnerable to adverse shocks. In the wake of recent shocks in Guatemala (Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the recent coffee crisis, droughts and deaths from extreme acute malnutrition), the issue of vulnerability has taken center stage in policy discussions. As such, the World Bank conducted a Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (RVA) as part of the broader GUAPA. The RVA brings a "vulnerability lens" to poverty analysis. Instead of a passive, reactive approach (given poverty, what can be done to reduce it?), it takes a dynamic, proactive approach (given vulnerability, poverty and risks, what can be done to get help poor people escape poverty and reduce the likelihood that others will fall into poverty?). Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, the RVA analyzed both vulnerability to shocks and vulnerable groups.

The GUAPA Program in Guatmala

The Impact of Vulnerability and Shocks on the Poor

Emil Tesliuc

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