Program Access That Lead to Errors of Exclusion

Improving Targeting Outcomes through Attention to Delivery Systems | 237

BOX 4.4

Geographic Information Can Help Diagnose Bottlenecks in Program Access That Lead to Errors of Exclusion

For Croatia, Azevedo (2017) compares poverty maps with spatial patterns of the availability of social welfare centers (SWCs) and spending on core social protection programs at the municipal and city levels. In Croatia, any individual who may require a social benefit must first apply at a social welfare center. Application for a program only requires a one-time visit by an applicant, and all benefits may be sent via post, bank deposit, or picked up in person. In a such a small country and with a single trip required, this is a context in which the location of offices would have the least power to influence participation, and yet, even in this context it does, and the government has been attentive to minimizing the issue.

There are 80 SWCs in Croatia, meaning that one center covers several municipalities/towns, close to seven on average. The farthest distance from the center of a municipality to its closest SWC is 25 kilometers. This implies that when someone wishes to apply for a benefit, he/she must travel less than 25 kilometers, at least once. The average citizen must travel 1.8 kilometers to the closest SWC branch. The shorter is the distance that an individual must travel to request assistance, the more likely it is that the individual will seek assistance. Ideally the centers should be closest to the poor to minimize the burden of seeking assistance. The analysis shows that social welfare centers are closer to the poor, but they are not necessarily closer to places with higher poverty rates. Individuals in and around the city of Zagreb must travel the shortest distance to get to a center, while individuals in some of the poorest places in Croatia must travel the farthest. Most of the poor are in places that are more densely populated, and, consequently, the centers are closer to where the poor are.

The study finds that spending is reasonably well targeted toward the poorest municipalities. There are relatively more beneficiaries of social programs living in municipalities and towns with higher poverty incidence and poverty depth than those living in richer areas. Further, relatively large amounts of social benefits are distributed toward the poorest local units. However, the distributional outcomes differ significantly across social programs, with the guaranteed minimum benefit found to have the most progressive incidence.

238 | Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance

Each of these arrangements requires clarity of rules, authority, budget flows, and, ideally, compatible incentives between the parties. These interagency arrangements are largely beyond the purview of this book, but they are important nonetheless. For example, if local authorities can select beneficiaries and bear none of the funding burden, they will have incentives to exercise any latitude they have in favor of increasing local receipts, possibly to the extent of introducing errors of inclusion. Conversely, if local authorities are expected to do work for a federal program but not given adequate resources for staffing, IT, transportation, and outreach, there are likely to be errors of exclusion.

Where formal administrative capacity has been lacking (not yet built) in pertinent government agencies, communities are sometimes called upon to fill the void. Communities sometimes serve as deciders in householdspecific determination of eligibility (a topic covered in chapters 5 and 6), but they can also serve in helpful ways even when full community-based targeting is not among the targeting methods used. Communities can play several different roles. Sometimes as delivery systems are built and the focus shifts from single programs or benefits to multifaceted programs and social protection systems, community participation is maintained but channeled into specific areas of comparative advantage and/or community partners are transformed into local administrative agents.

Community members such as community spokespersons or motherleaders serve as important elements in communication and supplement the government’s capacity in various programs. Mexico’s PROGRESA program started the model, which was picked up in other countries. In Colombia, mother-leaders are selected by their communities and receive some training by the programs. They help the community to understand the program and its rules, when and how to receive payment, and the procedures to file a grievance, and sometimes they help to amplify the messages received in behavioral change sessions. Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Program also uses its extensive network of mothers’ groups as outreach agents. Similarly, a community-based outreach model in the Republic of Yemen’s Social Development Fund focuses on using existing networks in the community for outreach.

Building the network for client interface is an ongoing task, more advanced in some places than others, probably still incomplete in most countries, and in constant need of attention. Some countries have made significant efforts to build a system where they had little a few years ago (see examples at the end of chapter 5). Especially in countries that are newly building programs and sometimes in countries with more established ones, it is typical for the networks to fall short of ideal. There is much to be done to improve social protection delivery systems, which will help with a variety of aspects of program success, including ensuring that the program reaches those it means to serve.