Targeting Effectiveness and Multidimensional Poverty in a Conflict Setting: Evidence from Conditional Cash Transfer Beneficiary Households in Northern Senatorial District, Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes can no doubt deliver significant poverty reduction, improve health and education gains; however, their impact is largely shaped by the systems that decide who qualifies to benefit. This study interrogates whether beneficiaries' own assessment of targeting effectiveness is associated with multidimensional poverty among Household Uplifting Programme (HUP-CCT) beneficiaries in the Northern Senatorial District of Plateau State, Nigeria. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was used, anchored in Social Protection Theory, with Adaptive Social Protection serving as a supplementary lens for interpreting targeting under changing vulnerability. Survey data comprised 353 clean cases for descriptive analysis, of which 212 complete cases were retained for hierarchical multiple regression (Model 1: R² = .098, F(4, 207) ≈ 5.64, p < .001; Model 2: R² = .114, ΔR² = .016, F-change(3, 204) = 1.23, p = .299). Nine key informants, purposively selected across five categories of programme actor, supplied complementary qualitative evidence. Beneficiaries rated the targeting process favourably overall (M = 3.66), especially on identifying genuinely poor households and on the transparency and fairness of selection. Despite this, targeting effectiveness showed no statistically significant association with the household multidimensional poverty score (β = .019, SE = .018, t = .273, p = .785) once age, educational attainment, household size and duration of programme participation were controlled for. The qualitative evidence points to registry obsolescence after displacement, constraints on field verification, and the possibility of local influence as plausible, though untested, mechanisms that may weaken the link between initial targeting decisions and later household conditions. The findings suggest that perceived targeting quality and measurable multidimensional poverty outcomes are simply different things. In conflict-affected settings, targeting is better understood as a continuing process of registry maintenance, verification and institutional oversight than as a one-time act of enrolment.