Peru Improves Social Inclusion

Challenge

To improve its social inclusion policies, the Peruvian government identified the following challenges:

Poverty mapping for better targeting: To guide the allocation of resources to poor areas, poverty maps are an extremely important and relevant tool from an operational and political economy context. The technical challenge was to identify the best way to estimate the maps. Additionally, the challenge was to connect the production of the maps by INEI to the use of the maps by MIDIS in their social program targeting discussions, thereby increasing the overall policy relevance of the poverty maps.

Increasing the value of M&E information in MIDIS: The information generated by the M&E systems is only valuable if it is broadly used. Under traditional M&E arrangements, the efforts of the evaluation area are concentrated in generating evidence. However, in many cases, the users of the evidence do not have the technical capacity, the resources, or the incentives to use this information to improve evidence-based policy decisions.

Solution

The non-lending technical assistance (NLTA) provided by the Poverty and Social Inclusion NLTA II to INEI ranged from completing the technical validation of the existing poverty maps, presenting a proposal to the Peruvian Poverty Committee about the best way to estimate the maps, and opening a broader discussion about targeting in Peru. In addition, the technical assistance supported activities with the more concrete objective of promoting the effective use of M&E information in the policy cycle. As part of this work the team has contributed to:

• Production of mobile apps to facilitate the use and increased transparency of MIDIS information.
• Development of a logical framework for the M&E activities in MIDIS focused on bridging the gap between the producers (M&E team) and the users (the social programs) of the evidence.
• Production of analytical products on poverty and social inclusion to serve as instruments to motivate and influence policies in MIDIS and in Peru.

Results

The technical support translated into concrete actions to improve the impact of social programs in Peru. The poverty map support to INEI had significant impact on the discussion about targeting of programs.  As a result, INEI is starting to work to develop a new poverty map in the context of a Poverty Committee which includes MIDIS, with the support of the Bank.

The collaboration between INEI and MIDIS on this area is a big step forward for the policy impact of poverty mapping, as the new map will likely help MIDIS to improve their targeting. Moreover, this project has helped to solidify the relationship between INEI and MIDIS. INEI has been able to demonstrate their high quality technical capacity, which in turns gives credibility to the social program targeting by MIDIS. 

This project has also contributed to the sustainability and functionality of the M&E system by supporting the strategy of how MIDIS’ General Direction of Monitoring and Evaluation (DSGE) works within the ministry. 

Bank Group Contribution

The Bank provided funding of US$174,000 for this technical assistance. The technical assistance consisted in:

(a) analytical work to validate the poverty maps;

(b) hiring a firm to develop mobile apps;

(c) analytical work and advice on M&E;

(d) training on poverty mapping and Tableau;

(e) support for dissemination activities;

(f) inviting international experts to Peru to meet with the Government officials.

Partners

The main partners have been INEI, MIDIS, and the Peruvian Poverty Committee.

Moving Forward

The World Bank will continue to explore areas of collaboration and support to both INEI and MIDIS to further strengthen the use of data in evidence-based policymaking. Potential areas of technical support to INEI include pursuing an Open Data initiative by strengthening the current Application Programming Interface (API) to improve data accessibility and usability by policy makers and citizens.

Beneficiaries

This activity contributed to improving the targeting and effectiveness of inclusion policies, which eventually will benefit the Peruvian people in the inclusion process.