Project description

Title: Identification of Poor Households (IDPoor)
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Cambodia
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Planning
Overall term: April 2006 to September 2009

Context

Poverty reduction is the overarching goal of Cambodian policy and at the same time one of the country’s greatest challenges. In the United Nations’ Human Development Index of 177 countries, Cambodia was placed at 131 in 2007.

Effective poverty reduction requires a specific orientation of development measures to the poor population: for instance, through appropriate service and social security programmes. To do this, procedures for identifying poor households are needed.

A uniform procedure recognised by all, officially declared by the Government as standard and practised nationwide is lacking. As a result, poor households cannot be sure of access to essential basic social services. They cannot lay claim to them even if they had a legal right to do so; for example, a right to exemption from health service costs.

Objective

A standardised procedure for identifying poor households is adopted officially by the Government and is in increasing use.

Approach

After intensive deliberation and consultation, it was decided at a national forum to develop a standard procedure that could be used throughout the country for identifying poor population groups.
The procedure to identify the households relies on transparency and participation: in the villages the community selects representatives from among its number that carry out the identification process. In open dialogue with villagers and based on poverty criteria, a list is drawn up of poor households. The elected commune council members verify the proposed lists, decide the households to be included and make the results public. The project develops the skills of the planning ministry staff to coordinate, effectively implement and monitor the identification procedure in cooperation with regional authorities.