Continuous improvement : strengthening Georgia's targeted social assistance program

The Targeted Social Assistance Program of Georgia is a last resort social program that is considered a best practice among proxy-means-tested (PMT) programs. It achieves high targeting accuracy for a relatively high level poverty incidence. In 2013, the Government of Georgia embarked in the revision of the program to ensure its continuous effectiveness and to revise some of the parameters of the eligibility formula that could be subject to manipulation. In particular, the government was concerned about the subjective evaluation of social agents and about concealable goods. This report assesses the technical work and the policy actions taken by the Georgian government during the last two years. In this way, it covers the full cycle of the reform of a social assistance program, from establishing the objectives to the design of compensation measures to minimize the number of newly ineligible beneficiaries. In particular, it describes the revision of the PMT formula, the introduction of a scheme of benefits that decreases with the score and an associated program for children, the pre-testing of new formula, and the design of compensation measures. The report also includes a chapter with specific recommendations for Georgia to improve the system of social protection and labour.