The methods to select safety net beneficiaries are the subject of frequent policy debates. This paper presents the results from a randomized experiment analyzing how efficiency, legitimacy, and short-term program effectiveness vary across widely used targeting methods.
... See More + The experiment was embedded in the roll-out of a national cash transfer program in Niger. Eligible villages were randomly assigned to have beneficiary households selected through community-based targeting, a proxy-means test, or a formula designed to identify the food-insecure. Proxy-means testing is found to outperform other methods in identifying households with lower consumption per capita. The methods perform similarly against other welfare benchmarks. Legitimacy is high across all methods, but local populations have a slight preference for formula-based approaches. Manipulation and information imperfections are found to affect community-based targeting, although triangulation across multiple selection committees mitigates the related risks. Finally, short-term program impacts on food security are largest among households selected by proxy-means testing. Overall, the differences in performance across targeting methods are small relative to the overall level of exclusion stemming from limited funding for social programs.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8412 APR 18, 2018
Developments in the second half of 2017 indicate that the slowdown in Mozambique's economic performance may be taking hold, shifting this once fast-growing economy to a more modest pace of growth.
... See More + GDP growth is expected to dip to 3.1 percent in 2017, despite substantial increases in coal and aluminum exports. Whilst these exports boomed, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)have fallen back even further, especially in the manufacturing sector, which contracted for this first time since 1994. Current trends make it clear that Mozambique needs to redouble its efforts to support small and medium enterprises, and to look beyond the extractive sector for more balanced growth. The drift towards a natural resource extraction based economy with low employment generation makes the case for Mozambique to leverage off its growing and youthful population provides for future growth.
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The Social Protection System Modernization Project aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Croatia’s social protection system. The project includes a results-based component, with 14 DLIs worth EUR 50 million, and an investment component of EUR 20 million.
... See More + Two DLIs, ‘establishment of the Central Disability Certification Institute with adequate staffing and methodology adopted’ (DLI #5) and ‘adoption of the Operational Plan for Deinstitutionalization of Social Welfare Homes’ (DLI # 11) worth EUR 4 million together, have been achieved and associated funds disbursed. Activities were launched in all five sub-components under the project’s investment component, but a slowdown in implementation occurred in 2015 in advance of parliamentary elections. A period of political changes that followed, with snap elections in 2016, halted the main project-supported reforms and almost all activities with exception of the activation sub-component. Therefore, progress towards achievement of the Project Development Objective (PDO) and implementation progress have been rated as ‘Unsatisfactory’. The project will be closed with an unsatisfactory rating because the PDO has not been achieved and the activities were not carried out. The exact rating will be determined with the implementation completion and results report (ICR), but could range from moderately unsatisfactory to highly unsatisfactory. The proposed restructuring will move the project closing date from December 31, 2018 to November 30, 2017 and cancel the undisbursed loan funds in the amount of EUR 63,277,234.82.
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