From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

4 RISK AND VULNERABILITY SOCIAL PROTECTIONchips on ID cards that could be used at ATMs or banks. However,the government has not so far approved the idea.In addition to such national, universal programmes, a global oneis possible, but it would have to be designed on different lines.Since a global universal basic income guarantee, even if set onlyto raise all people above the absolute poverty line of $1 a day,would cost some $300bn a year – several times the global aidbudget 24 – it would have to be targeted, and could be based onparticular countries, or groups or regions within countries.One possibility is to design a scheme along the lines of the globaleducation Fast Track Initiative, in which donor countries agree tofund any credible plan presented to them by a developing country.Alternatively, an existing agreement, the Food Aid Convention,could be transformed into a form of global safety-net that wouldsecure predictable funding for national social assistanceschemes aimed at alleviating chronic poverty and vulnerability.Source: International Journal of Basic Income Research, www.bepress.com/bisThe growth in social protection has also raised old debates aboutuniversalism versus targeting. Is it either more efficient or more equitableto target benefits to identified groups of vulnerable communities orindividuals, or is it better to give universal benefits, as was the fashionin developed countries in the 1960s and 1970s?Targeting is very difficult to implement, especially for cashstrappedand debilitated state machineries, as resources are frequently‘captured’ by the more powerful members of a community. In India,data from 5,000 households in 12 villages showed that, althoughsubsidised food schemes were ostensibly focused on the poor, thebeneficiaries were mainly middle-income families; the situation forpensions was even worse. 25 A wider World Bank study of 111 socialprotection projects found that targeting worked in three-quarters ofthem, but benefited poor people proportionately less in the remainingquarter. 26 In general it seems that targeting categories of easily identifiedpeople (elderly people, pregnant women, children) is more successfulthan means-testing populations to establish who is poor.215