How Well Can We Target Resources with “Quick-and-Dirty” Data?: Empirical Results from Cambodia

Poverty reduction is a top priority for international organizations, governments and non-governmental organizations. The aid resources available for poverty reduction are, however, severely constrained in many countries. Minimizing the leakage of aid resources to the non-poor is a key to maximize poverty reduction with limited amount of resources availble. One way to minimize such leakage is to target resources geographically. That is, policymakers can move resources to the poorest parts of the country. Geographic targeting can be quite effective when poverty is unevenly distributed across the country, and this proves to be the case in many countries.