Bulgaria

The main objective of this report is to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of Bulgaria's main social welfare and child protection programs in terms of their... Show More + coverage and targeting of the intended beneficiaries, adequacy, and poverty impact. The report reviews the administrative costs associated with and cost-benefit effectiveness of each of the main social welfare and child protection programs. The report highlights the significance of safeguarding adequate and effective social assistance programs aimed at social inclusion in light of the current global economic crisis, Bulgaria's large ethnic minority groups and prevalence significant pockets of poverty. This is essential not only to ensure that the limited resources for targeted social welfare programs are spent well and reach those who need them, but also to improve incentives for enhanced labor market participation and lessen future dependency on social assistance. Overall, Bulgaria's noncontributory social welfare programs are cost effective with administrative costs comprising less than 10 percent of the program resources. However, guaranteed minimum income (GMI) and heating allowance (HA) appear relatively costlier programs to administer due to combinations of factors, including less generous benefit levels, growing scaling-down of the programs, and the means-testing and verification requirements. As such, there may be scope to merge the programs to reduce the cost. GMI and HA can be very effective instruments to leverage government responses to mitigate the impact on the poor of the current global economic crisis. Given the benefit size and coverage are low, but the programs are extremely well targeted, they can be scaled up as temporary policy measures by: (a) expanding coverage, and (b) increasing the size of the benefits. Show Less -