Almost all CCT programs established to date have tried to target their benefi ts rather narrowly to the poor.2 Table 3.1 shows the targeting mecha-nisms used for a large number of programs, both established and nascent.
Region/Country/Program
Categorical Household identifi cation
Geographic Other
Proxy means test
Means test
Community assessment Africa
Burkina Faso: Orphans and Vulnerable Childrena
x x
Kenya: CT-OVCa x Orphan and vulnerable
children incidence
x
Nigeria: COPE x x
East Asia and Pacifi c
Cambodia: CESSP x x
Cambodia: JFPR x Gender and ethnic minority x x
Indonesia: JPS xb Genderc x
Indonesia: PKH x x
Philippines: 4Ps x x
Europe and Central Asia
Turkey: SRMP x
Latin America and the Caribbean
Argentina: Programa Familias x Benefi ciaries of Jefes y Jefas program, with two or more children; head has not completed secondary schoold
Bolivia: Juancito Pinto xe
Brazil: Bolsa Alimentação x x
Brazil: Bolsa Escola x x
Brazil: Bolsa Família x x
Brazil: PETI x x
Chile: Chile Solidario x
Chile: SUF Not part of social security
system
x
Colombia: Familias en Acción x x
Colombia: SCAE-Bogotá x
Dominican Republic: Solidaridad x x
Dominican Republic: TAE/ILAE x x
Ecuador: BDH x
El Salvador: Red Solidaria x xf
Guatemala: Mi Familia Progresa x x
Region/Country/Program Geographic Other means test test assessment
Honduras: PRAF x xg
Jamaica: PATH x
Mexico: Oportunidades x x
Nicaragua: Atención a Crisisa x x
Nicaragua: RPS x x
Panama: Red de Oportunidades x x
Paraguay: Tekoporã/PROPAIS IIh x x
Peru: Juntos x x
Middle East and North Africa
Yemen: BEDPa x Gender
South Asia
Bangladesh: FSSAP x Gender
Bangladesh: PESP xi x
Bangladesh: ROSC x x
India (Haryana): Apni Beti Apna Dhan x Gender x
Pakistan: CSPa Benefi ciary of food support
program
x
Pakistan: Participation in Education through Innovative Scheme for the Excluded Vulnerable
x x
Pakistan: PESRP/Punjab Female School Stipend Program
x Gender
Source: Program profi les.
Note: BDH = Bono de Desarrollo Humano; BEDP = Basic Education Development Project; CESSP = Cambodia Education Sector Support Project; COPE = Care of the Poor; CSP = Child Support Program; CT-OVC = Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children; 4Ps = Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program; FSSAP = Female Secondary School Assistance Program; JFPR = Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction; JPS = Jaring Pengamanan Sosial; PATH = Program of Advancement through Health and Education; PESP = Primary Education Stipend Program; PESRP = Punjab Education Sector Reform Program; PETI = Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil; PKH = Program Keluarga Harapan; PRAF = Programa de Asignación Familiar; ROSC = Reaching Out-of-School Children;
RPS = Red de Protección Social; SCAE = Subsidio Condicionado a la Asistencia Escolar; SRMP = Social Risk Mitigation Project; SUF
= Subsidio Unitario Familiar; TAE/ILAE = Tarjeta de Asistencia Escolar/Incentivo a la Asistencia Escolar.
a. Program at the pilot stage.
b. At both the national level (to identify the poorer districts) and the district level (to identify the poorer subdistricts/schools).
c. At least half of the scholarships at the school level were to be allocated to girls.
d. The Jefes y Jefas program started as a workfare program for unemployed heads of household.
e. Covers all children in public schools up to fourth grade.
f. Household targeting is only in the 68 less-poor municipalities. Targeting in the poorest 32 municipalities is geographic only.
g. Only households in the area covered by the Inter-American Development Bank project may participate.
h. PROPAIS II is a project, fi nanced by the Inter-American Development Bank, that builds on the Tekoporã program and fi nances additional benefi ciaries using similar procedures.
i. Only certain types of schools in rural areas may participate.
About two thirds of countries use geographic targeting; about two thirds use household targeting, mostly via proxy means testing; and many coun-tries use both. Moreover, many programs use community-based targeting or community vetting of eligibility lists to increase transparency.
The methods of proxy means testing vary in their details. For example, in all cases, the formula for the proxy means test was derived from statisti-cal analysis of a household survey data set; but, of course, there are differ-ences in the quality and detail of that original data set, and differdiffer-ences in the statistical methods used and in the sophistication and rigor thereof.
Signifi cant variations also exist in how the implementation is done—
whether households are visited; whether some variables are verifi ed as part of the application process for all or for a sample of applicants; whether the staff members who help complete applications are permanent or contract workers and to which agency they report; and other such differences.
Usually the proxy means testing system is led by a central agency (whether in the CCT program itself, independent, or in the ministry of planning), but the day-to-day staffi ng for it is delegated, often to municipalities, with considerable variability in independence and quality control.
In many cases, CCT programs have been the drivers for developing poverty maps or household targeting systems in their countries or for prompting upgrades to them. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that CCT programs have moved forward the state of the art and standards for targeted programs generally. Many countries fi rst estab-lished proxy means tests when designing the CCT program (Cambodia, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, Turkey). Some countries with older proxy means tests have made signifi cant reforms and improve-ments in their systems over time—if not because of, then certainly to the advantage of, their CCT programs (Chile, Colombia). Some of these are relatively low-income countries with limited administrative capacity, and they have made adaptations to accommodate that situation. Box 3.1 illustrates this for the case of Cambodia’s scholarship program.
The household targeting systems used in some of the best-known CCT programs constitute major “institutional capital” for the country.
The same system often is used to target many programs, sometimes with different thresholds or ancillary criteria. For example, in Chile (the fi rst country to use proxy means tests extensively), the system is used not just for the recent Chile Solidario program, but also for much older child allowance and social pensions, for water price subsidies, for hous-ing subsidies, and for other uses. Similarly, in Colombia, the same proxy means test (the SISBEN) used to determine eligibility for subsidized
health insurance, hospital fee waivers, the public workfare program, a youth training program, and a social pension has been used to target the CCT program. Even in countries with a more recently established proxy means test, those tests can be used in multiple programs. Jamaica established its proxy means test expressly for the CCT program, but now uses it to grant fee waivers in the health system and for secondary education textbook rentals and school lunches. Such an investment will pay off sooner for programs that are generous in coverage or benefi t lev-els and for countries that, at least eventually, will use the proxy means tests for multiple programs.
What have these procedures accomplished? It is diffi cult to measure targeting outcomes properly (see box 3.2), but we can approximate
B E C AU S E C A M B O D I A H A S R A T H E R L E S S
administrative capacity than the middle-income Latin American countries where proxy means test-ing originated, it has adapted the general practice of proxy means testing in a way that makes rigor-ous but simplifi ed testing viable. The schools that participate in its scholarship program are subject to a prior round of geographic targeting, and appli-cants complete a proxy means test that is used to allocate scholarships among each selected school’s students.
Cambodia’s CESSP program dispenses with the cadre of fi eld worker/social workers who often administer the instrument. Instead, students fi ll out the program application/proxy means test form in school. Then the teacher reads the information aloud and the classmates help verify/certify that it is cor-rect. A local committee of school and community leaders score the forms by hand.a To assist in manual scoring, the formula uses only integers.
The ranking is done only within schools, rather than against a national standard as in most proxy
means tests. In each school, the scored forms are arranged by score and the poorest children, up to the quota for that school, are selected for the scholar-ship. This process implies that recipients in poorer schools will be poorer, on average, than recipients in less-poor schools. It is thus less accurate than a ranking against a national standard, but eliminates the need for a national database and the informa-tion technology and communicainforma-tions networks that would be required to support it.
In a previous scholarship program, the formula was not very sound, so the committees were given leeway to deviate when they thought it appropriate;
and when they did so, the students selected were, in fact, poor (as judged later by an evaluation survey).
Subsequently the formula was based on statistical analysis of the same type used elsewhere, and the discretion of the local committees was reduced.
Source: CESSP Scholarship Team 2005.
a. In the fi rst year of the CESSP program, an independent fi rm scored the forms centrally.