ABSTRACT
The Millennium Development Goals measure progress toward eradicating extreme poverty, but they are average indicators and do not focus on the poor. The development community increasingly recognizes the importance of targeting. To help the poor and vulnerable, many countries have some form of targeted social safety nets. Over the past decade, the World Bank began to move from a project-focused approach that emphasized delivering social assistance, to helping countries build social safety nets and institutions to respond better to poverty, risk, and vulnerability, targeting support to particular groups. World Bank-supported projects have improved rural electrification, but the distribution of benefits has been neutral or even regressive. Several World Bank projects have started taking these issues on board. In Benin's Borgou pilot project, the community contribution typically required in World Bank interventions created hardships for the poor. For community-driven development projects, improving transparency in decision making and lowering barriers to participation can help.
