Social Protection Targeting

Social Protection Targeting is the set of methods used to decide who receives a transfer or safety-net benefit when resources are too scarce to cover everyone. Synthesised in the World Bank reviews of David Coady, Margaret Grosh, and John Hoddinott (2004) and the practical handbook of Grosh and colleagues (2008), it spans means testing, proxy means testing, community-based targeting, geographic targeting, and categorical targeting. Every method trades off two errors — including the non-poor (leakage) and excluding the poor (undercoverage) — and the analyst's job is to choose, calibrate, and combine mechanisms so that, given the budget and administrative capacity, benefits reach the intended population as accurately as possible.