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

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