Summary (English)

Poverty targeting has generated quite a polarised debate concerning the way forward for social protection policy in southern Africa and elsewhere in the continent. The main lines of this debate involve contrasting some form of categorical provision (for example, pensions for all people over 65, or grants for all children under five) with restricted provision to those most urgently in need of continuous support from the state (the destitute and those quite unable for one reason or another to provide for themselves). All such transfers are 'targeted' in one way or another, however criteria differ from the simple (e.g. an age threshold) to the quite complex (a set of proxy indicators for deprivation, such as lacking able bodied adults in the household, a high ratio of dependents, or eating one meal a day). The term ‘poverty targeting' refers to this problem of deciding the rules and the practice of restricting social transfers to the most seriously deprived individuals and families in society. This brief focuses on the proportion of the population in a poor country that should be reached by a poverty targeted transfer, and the income distribution effects of the transfer once it is made. It explores these aspects using data from large-scale household surveys in Ghana and Malawi.