Communications and Transparency in Program Intake

Adequate face-to-face communications with program applicants and beneficiaries are important for several reasons they are respectful to the client and thus lower social costs, they can help achieve the outcomes for targeting and for the household behavior sought and thereby increase the program s efficiency, and they can help a program to be judged as lair and thereby increase its political sustainability. Program staff should 

Safety net programs are rarely designed to provide permanent support for individuals or households (although some social insurance programs may be). Thus programs need to have a way to move beneficiaries off the rosters. Note that this is a somewhat different issue than helping households achieve economic independence, which is discussed in chapter 5, section 3. 

FOR PROTECTION AND PROMOTION THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OFEFI CTIVE SAFETY NETS 

To reduce the administrative burden and transaction costs of recertification for clients, programs may vary the frequency depending on the type of household. In the Kyrgyz Republic s Unified Monthly Benefit Program, for example, families in urban areas are usually granted benefits for only three months, whereas in rural areas benefits are granted for a year in the expectation that rural residents have less access to new jobs, and that if their 

The administration of time limits has implications for the program s data management system. A national database will be required, or at least local databases will need to be organized in a way that makes cross-checking feasible. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, for example, has no national database, so the five-year time limit cannot realistically be enforced. Residents can move from one state to another and essentially restart their time in the program. Some cross-checking takes place, but it is far from complete. Where time limits are for life, this implies that databases include information not just on current recipients, but on past recipients. 

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