Decentralized Beneficiary Targeting in Large-Scale Development Programs : Insights from the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Program

Kilic, Talip ; Whitney, Edward ; Winters, Paul

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ABSOLUTE TERMS;    ACCESS TO IRRIGATION;    AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES;    AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6713
RP-ID  :  WPS6713

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper contributes to thelong-standing debate on the merits of decentralizedbeneficiary targeting in the administration of developmentprograms, focusing on the large-scale Malawi Farm InputSubsidy Program. Nationally-representative household surveydata are used to systematically analyze the decentralizedtargeting performance of the program during the 2009-2010agricultural season. The analysis begins with a standardtargeting assessment based on the rates of programparticipation and the benefit amounts among the eligible andnon-eligible populations, and provides decompositions of thenational targeting performance into the inter-district,intra-district inter-community, and intra-districtintra-community components. This approach identifies therelative contributions of targeting at each level. Theresults show that the Farm Input Subsidy Program is notpoverty targeted and that the national government,districts, and communities are nearly uniform in theirfailure to target the poor, with any minimal targeting (ormis-targeting) overwhelmingly materializing at the communitylevel. The findings are robust to the choice of theeligibility indicator and the decomposition method. Themultivariate analysis of household program participationreinforces these results and reveals that the relativelywell-off, rather than the poor or the wealthiest, and thelocally well-connected have a higher likelihood of programparticipation and, on average, receive a greater number ofinput coupons. Since a key program objective is to increasefood security and income among resource-poor farmers, thelack of targeting is a concern and should underlieconsiderations of alternative targeting approaches that, inpart or completely, rely on proxy means tests at the local level.