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Poverty Targeting in Asia

Poverty Targeting in Asia. Country surveys on India, Indonesia, the Philippines, PRC and Thailand. Targeting versus universalistic approach . Advantages of targeting in face of budget constraints Difficulties in relation to… Lack of information on the poor and errors of omission Leakage

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Poverty Targeting in Asia

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  1. Poverty Targeting in Asia Country surveys on India, Indonesia, the Philippines, PRC and Thailand.

  2. Targeting versus universalistic approach • Advantages of targeting in face of budget constraints • Difficulties in relation to… • Lack of information on the poor and errors of omission • Leakage • Incentive effects • Administrative costs • Political economy

  3. Cost effectiveness framework • Rationing problem • PV (B poor) / PV (C) • Cost effectiveness related to … • Administrative costs per applicant • Demand and leakage • Under-coverage

  4. Concepts of targeting • Targeting by activity/ ‘broad targeting’ (eg primary health care) • Targeting by indicator • Targeting by location ( eg poor area programs) • Self-targeting ( eg workfare, subsidies on inferior goods)

  5. Country experiences • What has worked and what has not in terms of coverage and cost effectiveness? • How important have these measures been in poverty alleviation • What has been the role of governance? • What are key common problems?

  6. Targeting Measures: Usually Small in Monetary Terms • Re central government expenditure • India 11% (2002) • PRC 5% (2002) • Indonesia 9% (1998-99) • Thailand 3% - 10% (2000) vary with definition • Philippines 2% (1996-97)

  7. Identification of the poor • Poverty mapping new approach • ‘Administrative identification’ (India) non-income measures (eg land access, ownership of livestock) • Access to food, alternative clothing, non-earth floor for home (Indonesia) • Poor counties, based on income, presence of minority communities, old Revolutionary areas; more recently poor villages, based on indicators on infrastructure, housing , grains (PRC) • Unmet basic needs, shelter, health, education (Philippines)

  8. Misappropriation • Particularly re food and credit subsidy schemes and employment creation • Payment of bribes to receive benefits • Indian case well documented; eg for Employment Assurance Scheme, nationally only 15% of expenditure as benefits to workers against target of 60% • Logic of local officials, in PRC diversion of funds to revenue generating projects

  9. Under-coverage and leakage • Technical errors in targeting • Location targeting eg in PRC 38% of poor in non-poor counties in 2001; roughly 20% of counties miss-classified • In Philippines ranking of provinces by poverty status not match priority status; of 26 priority provinces only 11 in the ‘most depressed’ group by income

  10. Under-coverage and leakage • Indonesia under-coverage serious; subsidized rice reached 50% of target group but for all other measures proportion reached well below 20% • In Indonesia for most measures normally beneficiaries from non-poor over 70% • Self-targeting largely ineffective via employment creation; level of wage ‘crowding –our’ poor; in Indonesia in employment creation scheme 70% of beneficiaries ‘non-poor’

  11. Under-coverage and leakage • Some evidence of self-targeting working better in health schemes • Micro credit how far reaching core poor; subsidized credit in Philippines 30% of beneficiaries poor; in India 24%

  12. Government expenditure • Impact of government expenditure: Thailand no evidence of progressive targeting between provinces • Broad targeting normally progressive – primary health and education • Philippines rural electrification best outcome for growth and poverty reduction

  13. Effectiveness of targeting • Growth dominates; elasticity estimates for headcount –0.7 Philippines, -0.9 India, -2.0 Thailand • But income poverty elasticity also below 1.0; 0.54 Indonesia, 0.71 Philippines • High leakage and under-coverage lead to high costs per unit of benefit for targeting

  14. Cost effectiveness estimates • Employment creation Maharashtra 1.85; food subsidies 6.7; • Rice subsidy in Philippines 2.5 to 4.2; • But some positive growth effects for poor counties in PRC • Some benefits in ‘Crisis support’ in Indonesia, particularly re education and health

  15. Conclusions • Reaching the poor matters • Growth effects may be slow and unpredictable • Targeting needs good governance as well as good design • More modest schemes show lower leakage • Probably broad targeting combined with modest selective ‘protection’ measures all that possible

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