SELECTION AND IDENTIFICATION
A critical issue faced by all countries developing social protection systems is how to select beneficiaries. No country has ever been able to effectively cover everyone in need of transfers during the early stages of developing their social protection systems. The numbers of people in need are too great and place excessive demands on a country’s financial resources. As a result, in the early stages of the development of their social protection systems, countries have to make hard choices about which people to prioritise. Fortunately, there is significant international evidence on the consequences of the range of choices that have been made by countries, both historical evidence from developed countries and contemporary evidence from low and middle-income countries.
The module on “Selection and Identification” aims to give participants an understanding of selection processes and the key stages involved. The module explains how policy choices can determine the inclusion and exclusion of people at later stages in the selection process and how these choices can be further modified by fiscal choices, which are played out in decisions on the level of coverage of a scheme. It also gives an overview of design options for selection mechanisms and their implications as well as challenges of implementing selection processes.
