How can a low-income country like Zimbabwe focus social transfers on its poorest,
most vulnerable and most excluded citizens? In operational terms the Zimbabwe
Harmonized Social Cash Transfer Programme (HSCT) defines extreme poverty as
living below the food poverty line. It defines households as socially and economically
vulnerable, when they have no or insufficient work capacity or manpower.
HSCT classifies these households as labour constrained. Households that live in
extreme poverty and are at the same time labour constrained are excluded from
meeting their most basic needs in terms nutrition, basic health care, education and
shelter and from earning a livelihood through productive work. This category of
households forms the target group of HSCT.
The HSCT targeting and verification mechanism resulting from the three year
learning process is designed to avoid elite capture while at the same time making full
use of the community’s local information and willingness to participate. Targeting
is done by a census approach implemented by the Department of Social Services
(DSS) in cooperation with the national statistics office. The census identifies the
demographic structure and the poverty status of all households in the programme
area using a Proxy Means Test (PMT). The poverty scores of the PMT are aligned to
the poverty indicators used in the Zimbabwe national household survey.