Accurate targeting in social assistance programs in Southern Madagascar
Abstract
Purpose
Social assistance programs have been implemented in Madagascar to assist the most vulnerable and neediest poor in achieving a minimum standard of living during critical times. In the Grand South and Southeast Madagascar, where climate change, price fluctuations and sociopolitical instability threaten the population’s livelihood, the effectiveness of such aid-based programs is uncertain because of possible mistargeting. This study aims to assess the accuracy of the targeting methodology of four different types of social protection programs in Southern Madagascar.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw evidence from a national representative data set and use multiple techniques that integrate targeting performance and regression-based analyses.
Findings
Results show that cash transfers constitute the only program that effectively reaches the poorest 20% living in drought- and cyclone-affected regions. However, mistargeting is likely to occur in food, seed transfers, and the HIMO public works programs. Social inclusion information related to proximity to urban zones, religious affiliation, and number of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets are significantly associated to all program participation. Nevertheless, a serious under-coverage of the eligible poor is noted for Southern Madagascar.
Originality/value
This study is among the first to evaluate the targeting effectiveness of social programs in Madagascar. It introduces a novel approach to evaluating the poverty rate by utilizing a composite-based wealth score. The authors enhance the classic targeting assessment methodology by incorporating geospatial covariates, categorical, geographical and social network information into an econometric model. The study provides a comprehensive view of the main profile of beneficiaries reached by four social assistance programs in Southern Madagascar.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Author contributions: Fanantenana Raholiarimanana, Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, writing – original draft preparation, visualization; writing – review and editing, visualization, supervision.
Akira Ishida, validation, formal analysis, writing – original draft preparation, writing – review and editing, visualization, supervision. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval: Ethical approval was not required as the data set is publicly available upon request.
Informed consent: No information concerning consent was required.
Funding: We express our gratitude to the National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) in Madagascar, UNICEF, and USAID for providing us free access to the MICS 6 Madagascar data set and DHS 2021 for Madagascar. This information is publicly available at https://mics.unicef.org/surveys
Data availability: DHS GPS data sets are also publicly available after request at https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm and the geospatial covariates can be found at https://spatialdata.dhsprogram.com/methodology/#GEOSPATIAL%20COVARIATES
Citation
Raholiarimanana, F. and Ishida, A. (2024), "Accurate targeting in social assistance programs in Southern Madagascar", International Journal of Development Issues, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDI-04-2024-0101
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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