We aim to find the poorest possible recipients while using criteria that are simple, fair, cost-effective, and difficult to game.
Currently, our default is to locate extremely poor villages using poverty data from national surveys, and then enroll all households in the village.
For programs with specific targeting requirements (e.g. refugees, contactless programs) we use a range of identification methods, including obtaining lists from partners (gov’ts, NGOs, or community-based organizations) or partnering with apps.
In the past, we have also selected the poorer households within villages using simple criteria, e.g. enrolling families living in homes with thatched roofs and not those with metal roofs, and also experimented with a wide range of other targeting approaches including community-based methods, points-based systems such as the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI); subjective assessments; and various blends of these approaches.