Reaching the Poor: Cash Transfer Program Targeting in Cameroon

Type Conference Paper - The 2015 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and Western Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, July 26-28
Title Reaching the Poor: Cash Transfer Program Targeting in Cameroon
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
URL http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/205270/2/Targeting_AAEA2015_QS.pdf
Abstract
This paper assesses the ex-post performance of two popular targeting mechanisms, Proxy Means
Testing (PMT) and Community-Based Targeting (CBT), in a pilot cash transfer program in Cameroon. CBT
is found to perform poorly in terms of selecting households with low per capita consumption when
compared to PMT. CBT appears to select households with low physical and human capital, regardless of
actual consumption level and shows more variability in the selection decision than PMT. The results
suggest caution is needed in employing CBT methods to select households with low per capita
consumption in an environment with high poverty rates and limited administrative capacity.

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