Briefing Notes
Many poverty-focussed programmes, for example cash transfer programmes, explicitly aim to target assistance or services at the poorest households. It is important, in terms of both poverty reduction and financial efficiency, that such programmes manage to target these households effectively. However targeting involves various technical and operational challenges, as well as the more foundational challenge of defining who counts as ‘poorest’.
This briefing note outlines the key technical challenges to effective targeting: (a) in establishing the target population; and (b) in designing an operationally feasible mechanism to reliably identify this target population. Different mechanisms for targeting are discussed, as are key strengths and weaknesses.
(766k)