Title:
Options for the Delivery of Social Assistance: A Feasibility Study, Serbia
Options for the Delivery of Social Assistance: A Feasibility Study, Serbia
Start Date:
January 2007
January 2007
Completion Date:
May 2007
May 2007
Client(s):
Government of Serbia
Government of Serbia
Funder(s):
DFID
DFID
Location:
Serbia, Southern Europe,
Serbia, Southern Europe,
Key Contact:
Simon Hunt
Simon Hunt
Summary:
As part of the DFID-funded project supporting the implementation of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy’s Social Welfare Development Strategy, OPM undertook a study examining the options for reforming the delivery of cash benefits. This study was motivated by the World Bank’s comprehensive Serbia Social Assistance and Child Protection Policy Note (Report No.35954-YU), which observes that there are parallel administrative systems dealing with the two main cash benefit programmes: ‘MOP’ and ‘child allowances’. Since MOP and child allowances appear to be two very similar benefits, the hypothesis was that there would be some scope for consolidation of these two systems. This study therefore set out to answer two key questions: a) What will be the benefits of consolidating the MOP and child allowances administration systems? and b) How should administrative consolidation be implemented so as to maximise the benefits whilst minimising the costs?
To answer these two questions a number of activities were undertaken, including: a review of the MOP and child allowances legislation; a statistical analysis of the 2005 Household Budget Survey data to assess the targeting performance of MOP and child allowances; a qualitative study aimed at understanding the reasons for the low uptake of benefits revealed by the statistical analysis; and a small-scale fieldwork study examining the MOP and child allowances administration systems ‘on-the-ground’. The key message was that no single change would achieve all reform objectives.
To answer these two questions a number of activities were undertaken, including: a review of the MOP and child allowances legislation; a statistical analysis of the 2005 Household Budget Survey data to assess the targeting performance of MOP and child allowances; a qualitative study aimed at understanding the reasons for the low uptake of benefits revealed by the statistical analysis; and a small-scale fieldwork study examining the MOP and child allowances administration systems ‘on-the-ground’. The key message was that no single change would achieve all reform objectives.
