The Effectiveness of Targeting: Options for Uganda
This paper attempts to clarify the concept of targeting within the context of Uganda and discuss the most effective means of ensuring that ‘the poor’ and vulnerable are included in...
Support impactful programmes, not cost-cutting, IMF told as it reviews social protection approach
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been advised to focus on the impact of social protection programmes and not only their cost in its new framework for social protection. The...
Enough with the KIDDing around – let’s tackle the BIG questions!
Not too long ago, my colleague, Stephen Kidd, wrote a blog called ‘The debate in the World Bank on the Proxy Means Test hots up: or does it?’ (you can find the blog here). In it, he took issue with the way that the Bank’s Social Protection and Labour Group is...
Is Nigeria’s Social Protection on the cusp of transformation?
Will the design of a direct cash transfer in Nigeria ensure its ongoing popularity and sustainability? Guest blogger Gbenga Shadare considers Nigeria’s social protection issues. Will community-based targeting of those in poverty provide a necessary safety net? In the course of the last presidential campaign in Nigeria, which saw the People’s Democratic Party overthrown...
Exclusion by Design: the effectiveness of the Proxy Means Test
In recent years, the proxy means test (PMT) has become the predominant targeting mechanism for social assistance schemes in developing countries. It has many powerful advocates and claims that it...
Final report of global review of targeting effectiveness set to be unveiled
The culmination of an assessment of the targeting effectiveness of social protection programmes across the globe undertaken for the Church of Sweden will be launched this Thursday 14th. Ahead of...
Poverty targeted schemes could face legal challenges, warns former UN Special Rapporteur
If countries continue to use targeted social protection schemes that fail to reach those in poverty, they may face legal challenges. This comment came from former UN Special Rapporteur on...
World Bank under fire over poverty-targeted schemes after global review of the evidence
The Interim President of the World Bank, Kristalina Georgieva, has been challenged by the BBC over the institution’s support for poverty-targeted social protection. Stephen Sackur of BBC HARDtalk today raises...
The Social Protection Flaw – or how not to win fiscal space for entitlements
The many disadvantages to poverty-targeted social protection include the fact that they never become entitlements that attract popular demand and the financial backing of governments, writes Nicholas Freeland, independent consultant. Freeland highlights...
Extent of World Bank’s poverty-targeting demands laid bare in civil society analysis
The World Bank pushes for more poverty-targeting in most of its loan conditions on social protection even whilst acknowledging the downsides to this means of selecting beneficiaries, a new analysis...