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households with young women and children—using a combination of geographic, self-selection, and demographic targeting. Box 5.4 describes other cases. People living with disability or who are facing unemployment are also common categories that may deserve support. However, discerning who has a disability is not simple, nor is determining what level of support may be appropriate for individuals in these groups (see boxes 5.5 and 5.6, respectively). Beyond these short treatments and the references, this book does not cover the topics of disability assessment or labor profiling.
BOX 5.4
Using Categorical Programs in Crisis Response: Examples from Mongolia, Bolivia, and Nepal As part of its COVID-19 response, Mongolia quintupled payments in its nearly universal child allowance. Before the pandemic, the Child Money Program (CMP) provided an allowance of Tog 20,000 (US$7) per month to children younger than 18 years. It aimed to cover about 85 percent of all children in Mongolia (particularly poorer children). As a part of its COVID-19 relief package, the government of Mongolia increased the benefit amount by five times to Tog 100,000 (US$35), which is equivalent to more than half of the poor’s per capita monthly household income. Between April 2020 and July 2021, this cost 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), one of the larger crisis response programs in the world. It was also the largest element of Mongolia’s overall response package, which cost 11 percent of GDP, again among the larger response packages. Data from a series of rapid phone surveys sketch a picture of the outcomes. Overall coverage was high but not universal, reaching about 65 percent of households by the time of the first survey in May 2020 and similar throughout. Coverage was mildly progressive, with 80 percent of households in the poorest quintile receiving the CMP, and declining to 47 percent of those in the highest quintile. Since pandemic-induced income shocks were widespread across the distribution, there were no statistically significant differences in the likelihood of receiving the CMP payment between households that experienced and did not experience a loss in labor income. In terms of usage of the CMP benefits, poorer beneficiaries were more likely to cash out and use the CMP benefits immediately, especially for food and household utilities, while wealthier households were continued next page
