Tajikistan - Delivering Social Assistance to the Poorest Households

World Bank

Tajikistan - Delivering Social Assistance to the Poorest Households

2011

World Bank

During the food, fuel, and financial crises of 2008 and 2009, the Government and donors found themselves without an effective mechanism for channeling assistance to the poor. In 2009, the Government of Tajikistan asked the World Bank to support improvement of its system of social assistance. The World Bank prepared this report to inform its technical and financial support for improvement of social assistance and also to define an initial mechanism for delivering benefits to the poorest households. At present, Tajikistan's system of social assistance exerts almost no downward influence on poverty rates. This note sets forth the case for reform and then presents some specific technical proposals for reforms. To trace the path to reform, this report starts with an assessment of the present system. The other main social assistance program is compensation to needy families whose children attend school. This program pays benefits to selected households if their children enroll in and attend school. The size of the benefit is negligible and is judged too low to influence school attendance. An important step in the reform will be to consolidate the two main social assistance programs, and if possible, all the programs, and replace them with a single targeted social assistance benefit program. This will improve targeting by decoupling social assistance from consumption of electricity and natural gas. This is important since some very poor people live in isolated mountainous areas where they are not connected to the electricity and gas grids, and thus would not benefit from these compensation transfers. This report presents proposals for scoring formulas (drawn from proxy-means tests) for urban and rural areas, based on data on the characteristics of households and observable proxies for consumption. Empirically, the most important household characteristics for predicting consumption are the number of children, the number of family members, and the oblast of residence.

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AGROVOC Keywords

banks barter cash transfers corruption equipment exchange rate expenditure extreme poverty family allowances food aid food consumption fraud gender gross domestic product household consumption household income household surveys housing human capital income inflation insurance living standards local government malnutrition mountainous areas nutrition old age pension pensions real estate remittances rural areas rural poverty scholarship sheep social protection targeting unemployment unemployment insurance union unions urban areas vegetables village villages war

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World Bank

Other Subjects

Financial support; Dummy variables; Disabled; Financial crisis; Access to electricity; Central banks; Beneficiary; Checks; Rich regions; Registry system; Exclusion; Public policy; Remittance; Consumer durables; Eligibility determination; Minimum wage; Regional data; Budgeting; Fiscal capacity; Elderly people; Administrative feasibility; Financial crises; Currency; Special funds; Income groups; Treasury; Demographic characteristics; Family poverty; Payment system; Insurance pension; Rural; Finances; Local capacities; Poor households; Bank branch; Poor families; Treasuries; Poor population; Disability allowances; Impact on poverty; Poverty update; Central bank; Information technologies; Household needs; Consumption expenditures; Means tests; Beneficiaries; Money transfers; Pension income; Return; International development; Family poverty benefit; Poor people; Deposits; Bank branches; Legal framework; Household welfare; Schooling; Technical assistance; Commercial bank; Transfer programs; Compensation payments; Administrative costs; Transparency; Human development; Poor; Cash payments; Household head; Means testing; Poverty map; Vulnerable groups; Living standard; Institutional capacity; Household size; Government budget; Targeting mechanisms; Block grant; Eligible children; Community groups; Poverty rates; Transportation services; Poverty assessment; Disability pension; Poverty line; Poor children; Social assistance; Settlement; Wire transfer; Beneficiary households; Conflict; Vulnerable households; People with disabilities; Food poverty; Consumption expenditure; Per capita consumption; Government budgets; Family members; Extreme poverty line; Safety nets; Poverty impact; Pension payments; Income poverty; Rural poverty rate; Household survey; Special fund; Food price; Household consumption per capita; Receipt; Basic health; Household heads; Cash payment; Poor beneficiaries; Labor markets; Household composition; Eligibility criteria; Poverty threshold; School attendance; Administrative capacity; Fiscal resources; Private transfers; Employment in agriculture; Pension fund; Rural households

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2762http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/World BankCreative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

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Tajikistan - Delivering Social Assistance to the Poorest Households

2011

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