readily measurable proxies for poverty are then widely used for targeting in such an imperfect information environment efficiency considerations point to the need for using indicators that are not easily manipulated by actual or potential beneficiaries although this is rarely very clear in practice criteria such as family size age of children work status geographical location of residence housing conditions or lifetime limits on program participation are often used for delimit population groups result in a considerable segment of the poor population having little access to cash income moreover the political economy response to targeting is also a concern whereby finelytargeted programmes can undermine the political support for social policies de donder and hindriks gelbach and pritchett