ABSTRACT
Declining living standards and dwindling resources have forced social policy makers in Uzbekistan, as in the other transition countries, to tackle the redesigning of the system of social protection which they inherited from the Soviet period. In 1994 the Uzbek government came up with an original solution to part of this problem, in that it introduced a new social assistance scheme for low-income families, which is administered by traditional pre-Soviet local community groups, the ‘mahallas’. The mahalla is asked to identify the poorest households in the community, and to ensure that cash social assistance is paid to them on a monthly basis. The scheme is interesting, since it allows resources to be targeted while circumventing the need to establish a poverty line and poverty indicators, and avoiding the administrative costs and problems associated with the introduction of means testing. It also offers extreme flexibility, meaning in principle that, in the volatile conditions of transition, assistance can be switched quickly and effectively to reach those most in need.
