The Identification of Poor Households Programme is led by the Ministry of Planning (MOP) in collaboration with the Department of Local Administration (DOLA) of the Ministry of Interior. The programme is implemented with funding by the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union, AusAID, Asian Development Bank, IFAD, UNICEF, and the Royal Government of Cambodia, with technical assistance provided and coordinated by German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).

What is Identification of Poor Households? Why do we need it?
In Cambodia until recently, poverty-oriented development planning and service provision has not focused enough attention on targeting assistance to poor people. Where household targeting has been implemented, each institution has developed and applied its own procedures and criteria for identifying beneficiaries. This means that results are not comparable with each other, and are generally also not shared with other organisations and institutions.

Identification of poor households, according to the procedures used by the Ministry of Planning and partner organisations, seeks to determine which households are poor and the poverty level of these individual households in rural villages. The purpose of identification of individual households is to directly target services and development assistance to the poorest households in a village in order to help lift them out of poverty and to protect them from the impact of shocks (e.g. serious illness, crop failure) which may deepen their poverty.

The Identification of Poor Households data can also be used for calculating comparative poverty levels of villages, communes, districts and provinces. Service providers can use this data for targeting poorer communes or villages, and the poor households within those areas.

In Cambodia there are many potential uses for data on poor households, such as the provision of free or discounted medical services (e.g. through Health Equity Funds or Social Health Insurance), scholarships or other financial support to poor school pupils and students, rural development and agriculture-related services, allocation of social concession land to the poor, and many other uses. There is also potential for developing conditional or unconditional cash transfer programmes. IDPoor will be an integral part of the government’s Social Safety Net programme which is currently under development.

Where is Identification of Poor Households being conducted?

The Ministry of Planning carried out identification of poor households in a total of 2109 villages in five provinces during 2007 and 2008. In 2009, some 2971 villages were covered in seven provinces (partially or fully).

In addition to the eleven provinces partially or fully covered by the MOP, Health Equity Fund Operators and their partners have been using the Procedures for Identification of Poor Households in a number of other areas. In 2007 and 2008, URC implemented procedures for identification of poor households based on the national Procedures in 5 Operational Districts (ODs) in the three provinces of Banteay Meanchey, Battambang and Pursat provinces. In the same period, the NGO Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC) implemented the Procedures in five ODs in Sihanoukville, Kompong Chhnang and Kompong Cham. In total, URC and RHAC conducted identification in 1322 villages in 2007-2008. In 2009, URC, PFD and RHAC covered a total of approximately 707 villages in Banteay Meanchey, Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, and Koh Kong provinces.

Please see the table below for more details of areas covered during the period 2007-2009, by the Ministry of Planning and by partner organisations.

Many areas covered by the Ministry of Planning, as well as partner organisations, are areas in which Health Equity Funds (HEFs) are operating. Many of these areas have substantial numbers of other types of service providers as well. In 2010 and 2011, the MOP intends to cover 23 of 24 provinces and municipalities (in rural areas only).

Procedures and Questionnaire
A key emphasis of the IDPoor Programme has been to use identification procedures that maximise implementation by government structures and village representatives, in order to build local capacity and enhance sustainability. The procedures also involve a high degree of participation by and consultation with villagers themselves. This increases the transparency of the process and the accuracy of the results, and therefore the acceptability to local people and to data users.

The process for identification of poor households consists of seven steps, which are summarised below.

• Step 1: Establish and train the Planning and Budgeting Committee Representative Group (PBCRG) at the commune level
• Step 2: Establish and train Village Representative Groups (VRGs)
• Step 3: VRG compiles List of Households in the Village, conducts household interviews, considers special circumstances of households; and after a Commune Review Meeting, compiles and publicly displays the First Draft List of Poor Households in the village
• Step 4: VRG conducts Village Consultation Meeting on First Draft List of Poor Households, receives villager complaints, prepares and displays Final Draft List of Poor Households, and submits the List to the Commune Council
• Step 5: Commune Council reviews and approves Final List of Poor Households, sends data to Provincial Department of Planning; and distributes Equity Cards to poor households (after data entry and photography in Steps 6 and 7)
• Step 6: Provincial Department of Planning enters all data and household photos into Provincial Database of Poor Households
• Step 7: Photography of poor households
  

A standard questionnaire is used in all areas, in order to optimise comparability of the results of identification among households and among geographical regions (village, commune, district, province). The questionnaire consists of a set of commonsense proxy indicators for poverty, agreed by the national Working Group on Identification of Poor Households, which are mainly based on easily observable and verifiable assets, but also include a number of other issues such as dependency ratio, school attendance, crises or shocks, and household composition. Interviews are conducted by Village Representative Group members themselves, whose local knowledge makes it easier to verify whether respondents are accurately reporting their situation, as well as to assess the special circumstances of households.

You may download the Procedures and the Questionnaire used by the MOP for identification of poor households from the "General Information" panel at the bottom of this webpage. NB: The updated version for 2010 has not yet been placed on the webpage. These will be updated in early 2010.

Sub-Decree on Identification of Poor Households
The promulgation and promotion of a Sub-Decree on Identification of Poor Households (expected in 2010) will enhance efficiency by providing a legal basis to actively discourage duplication of effort in conducting identification of poor households. The sub-decree will mandate the Ministry of Planning as the sole government body responsible for managing identification of poor households, and the IDPoor Procedures as the standard national system for identification of poor households. It will also stipulate that in areas covered by the IDPoor Procedures, all service providers must use the IDPoor data as the primary method of targeting beneficiaries.

Database of Poor Households
A Database of Poor Households has been developed to support the implementation of identification of poor households, and to generate data for dissemination to service providers. This database was developed in Cambodia and is bilingual (Khmer and English). The database is designed so that data entry can be conducted on a distributed basis in different locations, and then consolidated at the national level. In 2008 and 2009, the MOP has also made the database freely available to partner organisations to enable them to enter data in their own coverage areas. This has allowed the MOP to consolidate data from areas covered by the MOP as well as by partner organisations, and to make this data available to all interested service providers, in order to maximise the cost-effectiveness of data collection.

Data is available on CD or DVD, or can be provided in the IDPoor data viewer software for specific regions. If your organisation or institution wishes to receive this data, please contact the IDPoor Programme on idpoor.database@online.com.kh

Please see sub-page Key Reports on Poor Households for details on the different types of reports available on CD-ROM or in the Database of Poor Households.

Looking Ahead
In 2010 and 2011, the MOP intends to cover 23 of 24 provinces and municipalities (in rural areas only). This has been made possible by the generous funding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union Food Facility, AusAID, Asian Development Bank, UNICEF, and the Royal Government of Cambodia.

Another key objective of the MOP is to work closely with the Ministry of Interior to achieve the integration of identification of poor households as a routine task of Commune Councils and their support structures. Institutionalisation of this programme within these structures will promote its long-term sustainability, and the widespread use of data on poor households by commune councils as a tool for commune planning.

Survey of Implementers and Stakeholders
In 2008, a Survey of Implementers and Stakeholders on Issues Relating to Identification of Poor Householders was conducted in the provinces of Kratie and Siem Reap. The report and the presentation may be downloaded from the "General Information" panel at the bottom of this webpage.

Further studies are planned during 2010, to verify whether 1) the process of implementation is transparent, fair, and follows good governance practices; 2) the data has an acceptable level of accuracy in identifying poor households and their level of poverty, and is accepted by the communities in which the identification process took place; and 3) the data is being widely used by large service providers; and 4) whether the use of IDPoor data for poverty targeting is effective, accurate and cost-efficient.

National Workshop on Identification of Poor Households Programme
On 8 January 2009, the MOP organised a national workshop on the Identification of Poor Households Programme. The aim of the workshop was to present the Royal Government’s national Procedures for Identification of Poor Households, to promote the use of data on poor households for targeting of services and assistance to poor rural households, and to promote further resource mobilisation for expansion and ongoing operation of the IDPoor Programme. At the workshop, IDPoor data for Round 1 (2007) and Round 2 (2008) was distributed on CD to all participants. The agenda, press release, presentations and speeches of the workshop can be downloaded from the "IDPoor Workshop January 2009" panel at the bottom of this page. NB: National-level dissemination of 2009 IDPoor data collected by MOP as well as partner organisations is planned in early 2010. MOP data for 2009 has already been distributed at provincial and district level in the target provinces covered by the MOP.

Further information about the IDPoor Programme may be obtained by reading the detailed Programme Description and/or Pamphlet in the "General Information" panel at the bottom of this page, or by contacting the IDPoor Programme at email: idpoor@online.com.kh or tel: (023) 220740 . You may also contact the following persons directly:

Sub-pages:

Key Reports on Poor Households


IDPoor Data Users Table