Assessing the Targeting Procedures
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| Door chalked to show it had been visited |
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Purpose and Methods
The purpose of assessing the targeting
approach is to determine the level of inclusion and exclusion error in
the Mchinji Cash Transfer scheme (or the number of households that
receive the transfer that
do not meet the program's eligibility criteria and the number of
households that meet the criteria but do not
receive the transfer.) The purpose of this activity is also to estimate
the level of household poverty in villages where the cash transfer is
operational to determine whether the assumed levels of poverty
underpinning the scheme are correct.
The Malawi Government and other stakeholders need to understand whether the scheme is adequately designed to
reach the households it was intended for, if the assumption that 10% of the population meets the
eligibility criteria is accurate, and what the extent of poverty and ultra poverty is in Mchinji. The government is
scaling up the cash transfer scheme to additional districts and will use this
information to determine whether there is an acceptable coverage and leakage
rate.
In this research
activity, we collected a listing of all households within the village
groups where the cash transfer is operational in Mchinji. We went
door-to-door, boundary-to-boundary listing everyone in every household
in the catchment area.
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| List of all households with number of family members |
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Next, we selected a systematic random sample of 615 households that
would be representative of the entire catchment area. We collected an
18-page survey from all of these households. The
survey was designed to
obtain information on household economic status based on their reported
income, expenditures, and asset ownership, as well as information on
whether the household meets the
eligibility criteria for the cash transfer, as indicated by the number
of household members, member's
employment status, level of education, and health status.
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| Kids in Mchinji |
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Background Justification and Research Questions
According to the Malawian Integrated Household Survey (IHS) 52% of
households in Malawi fall below the poverty line, and of these, 22%
fall below the ultra poverty line, so that approximately 7 million
people living in an estimated 1.3 million households are absolutely
poor and 3 million people living in 550,000 households are ultra poor
(NSO, 2005). (In 2005, the poverty line was MK64,659 per person per
year (US$461 per year) and the ultra poverty line was below MK40,116
per person per year (US$286 per year).
The Mchinji Social Cash Transfer Pilot is was designed to reach the poorest 10% or
250,000 households in Malawi that are labor constraint (i.e. there is
no person aged 19-65 able to work).
The cash transfer scheme is based on the premise that there is a
distinction between moderate poverty and ultra poverty such that ultra
poor households suffer from severe hunger during most of the year. They
may become physically weak, sell or consume their productive assets
(e.g. livestock, tools, seed), give up investing in their future (like
sending children to school), and die from infections that other people
survive. Ultra poor people may be slow to respond to programs such as
credit and saving schemes or work programs due to their circumstances.
Ultra poor households that are labor constraint are at the greatest
disadvantage, while households with an able-bodied worker are less
vulnerable and can respond to food-for-work programs, day labor and can
find income generating opportunities.
The financial estimates for scaling the cash transfer scheme up
throughout the country are based on the assumption that 10% of
households are actually below the ultra poverty line are "non viable"
because they are labor constraint or have high dependency ratios.
Throughout the world, cash transfer schemes operate in countries at
every level of economic development. There are six main methods used to
target eligible recipients:
- Means testing (based on income);
- Proxy
means testing (using some indicator as a signal of income;
- Community-based targeting (where local knowledge is used to determine
vulnerability;
- Geographical targeting (when a program is only targeted
to a specific region);
- Demographic targeting (determined by age, gender
or other characteristic); and
- Self-targeting (available to all but only
real poor are likely to take it up) (Coady, Grosh, Hoddinott, 2004).
The Mchinji Scheme was designed to use community based targeting, which
enables local community leaders to determine which households among
them are the worst off and most vulnerable, but provides guidance or
"proxies" of vulnerability for community members to consider. For
example, ultra poor and labor constrained households are likely to eat
only one meal per day. They may be unable to purchase items like soap,
clothing, and school supplies and they may cope by begging. Critics of
community based targeting warn that community members may choose
recipients based on nepotism or exclude eligible households out of
discrimination. Examining which households are included or excluded
will help policymakers determine the appropriateness of community based
targeting in Mchinji.
The targeting process is as follows: - The District Secretariat trains
a Community Social Protection Committee (CSPC) to help implement the
scheme. - The CSPC makes a list of ultra poor labor constrained
households based on community knowledge and the local Village Headman
signs off on this list. - The CSPC then visits the households to fill
out an application for each household. - Next, the CSPC ranks
households and chooses the 10% poorest. - A community meeting occurs
where the ranking is discussed. - Then Village, District, and National
Committees must approve the list of eligible households. - Once fully
approved, recipients receive transfers on a monthly basis
This evaluation of the targeting process was developed in order to
assess whether the targeting system effectively targets the eligible
households and rejects ineligible households. Preliminary data from
Round 1 of the baseline survey on the impact of the scheme helps
confirm that inclusion error is low, so that there are few recipients
receiving the transfer that do not meet the eligibility criteria.
Still, with the targeting study, we can confirm or reject the finding
that inclusion error is low throughout the villages where the scheme is
operational, rather than just in the four village groups in the impact
study. Additional outstanding questions include:
- What percentage of
households is excluded, but meets the eligibility criteria?
- Are the
assumptions about the poverty levels correct, such that 52% of
households are poor, 22% are ultra poor and 10% are ultra poor and
labor constraint?
- Is there important exclusion such that while recipients appear to be
highly vulnerable, it is not clear whether other households are even
more vulnerable;
We have the data to answer these questions and expect to have a report ready by October 2007.
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| Zione, Davdison and Tendai |
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Notes from the Field: Zione's Supervisory Diary
"We went to Nduwa VDC. We started very late not only
because it was very far but because there was not any committee member to help
us, We managed to meet a certain man who helped us by calling the committee chair.
He led us to a village across certain swamps. Nobody was willing to cross those swamps and
I just told every body that everybody was crossing. We had to walk in dirty, stinking, muddy
swamps. It was really horrible and so
disgusting. Things we do for money. When we reached the village, we got straight
to work for it wa quite big and we were told that some people were living
somewhere on their farms. The chief
volunteered to take Chiyembekezo there using his bike. When Chiyembekezo came back she told us that
they reached a point where they had to leave the bike and foot the rest of the
journey for even a bike could not reach that place because of the condition of
the path. Poor Chiye. When going back, Allan got a very long, and
big pole, which people were using to jump over the swamps. The men in the team used this pole and I wanted to
follow suit. It was so bad, I landed
right in the swamps and splashed them all over.
My shoes were all soaked and my clothes very dirty with the mud. When the other women on the team saw this they just took
off their shoes and walked through the swamps as they did before. They laughed
at me but I don’t think this was supposed to be a laughing matter. By the time we got into the
car we had to open all the windows for it was stinking like a pig."
"It’s been a nice experience though very tough
and tiresome. I wish I could find a
better way of applauding my team members who have been working very hard and
have been very cooperative through out the household listing programme. They never tired, the could leave very early
and come back very late and still not complain much. My sincere thanks to them."
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