Abstract

Abstract
Reducing poverty and improving the living standard of the poor and vulnerable populations in Sri Lanka have been among the critical agendas of governments. Hence, the incumbent government too has designed and accelerated poverty-targeting programs to reduce poverty. The relevant government agencies play a significant role in determining low-income families, supporting and assisting them in multiple ways in achieving sustainable development. Thus, the government provides families with cash transfers, microfinance and various community-based and livelihood development activities. The main safety - net program currently targeting the poor in Sri Lanka is the “Samurdhi” programme. Although consecutive governments have spent vast amounts of money for several decades on social safety net programs, impoverished people have unfortunately been excluded and remain poor. The high vulnerability is due to mistargeting, less transparency and accountability, political influences in the implementation of programs, and weakness of beneficiary selection methods. Thus, it is essential to redesign the selection criteria for social safety-net programmes to target the poor effectively. This article explores measures to identify the target and potential beneficiaries, assessing the deprivations at the household level in multidimensional aspects named “Multidimensional Deprivation Score Test (MDST)”. This programme captures the experiences of the poor in several dimensions simultaneously. It computes the weighted deprivation score by weighting each deprivation derived by a data-driven approach to capture the poorest and most vulnerable people more accurately. Empirical evidence via the Household Income and Expenditure Survey data in 2019 conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics, National Statistical Office in Sri Lanka, ensures the effectiveness of the criteria. The output indicates that shifting to the MDS test to select beneficiaries could improve the targeting and significantly increase the impact of social protection programs on poverty.

Keywords: Poverty, Social safety net, Selection Criteria