Considerations in Choosing among Welfare Targeting Methods

274 | Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance

decades it seemed that it was progress to provide direct support to some of the poor who before that had none, now it seems insufficient not to have helped them all.

Considerations in Choosing among Welfare Targeting Methods

Choosing a targeting method requires matching different methods to a program’s objectives, particularly whether beneficiaries will come from an entire category of households or be selected from a welfare ranking of households:

1. Are household-specific ranking and measurement needed or will another method or methods suit the purpose and context? Will one or a combination of selftargeting, geographic targeting, demographic targeting, or even lotteries fit the purpose and constraints well (or well enough)? 2. If a household-specific method is needed, which should be used? For example, which among means testing, HMT, PMT, or CBT is most suitable? 3. Should multiple methods be used? It is now quite common that multiple methods are used, but it is not necessary and sometimes not ideal. For example, although methods that determine eligibility based on a category can help prioritize when budgets are limited or sequencing is required, they are guaranteed to exclude some poor people, as poverty affects people in all places, all ages, all genders, or other group definitions. So, if a country is developing or has developed the capacity for a household-specific system, does a categorical system add value?

Practical considerations also influence the choice of methods. When choosing a targeting method, policy makers will also want to consider what data are already available and what capacity public agencies have for using them, especially when household matching is required across databases without unique identifications (IDs). Capacity concerns may also arise for more technical targeting methods, including the development of poverty maps for geographic targeting and household income imputation techniques underpinning HMT and PMT. In addition, the available budget for beneficiary outreach and selection may make some methods less attractive, especially if large-scale data collection is required through home visits.

One of the powerful issues is whether a program is for “good times” or shocks/crises or both. As shocks are quite diverse and have different impacts on different populations, there is no unique targeting method that could be used against all shocks equally well. Speed of response is of the essence for shocks. Programs that address chronic poverty or redistribution can build their capacity or more easily take time to gather household-specific data.