1. SISBEN: a contribution to operate a social protection floor
ILO expert meeting, May 29-31st, 2013
Siem Reap, Cambodia

2. Purpose and Contents Contents
Objective: Identify the contribution of SISBEN to improve transparency and traceability through management information systems.
Contents
Colombian context
Describing SISBEN
SISBEN, national development plans and policies
SISBEN as a targeting tool: its impact
Lessons on transparency and traceability through management information systems

3. I. Colombian context
Population: 47.6 million inhabitants (2012), ¾ of them in urban areas.
Tendency to ageing: demographic dependency ratio of 51.5% in Colombia vs. 46.8% in Brazil and 45.2% in Chile.
Share of sectors in GDP: finance, insurance, real estate and other services to enterprises (19.5%), and social, community and personal services (15.5%) explained a third of GDP in 2010.
Colombia: GDP p/c of US $3,394 in 2005 and $4,116 in 2011
Latin-American: GDP p/c of US$ 4,727 in 2005 and US$ 5,741 in 2011.
Income poverty rate: 34.2% in 2011 vs. 35.4% (Ecuador), 6.5% (Uruguay), 20.9% (Brazil), and 20.2% (Chile).
Gini coefficient: in 2011 vs. Brazil (0.559), Uruguay (0.402) and Venezuela (0.397).
Unemployment rate: 11.5% in 2011 vs. 6.0% (Brazil) and 7.11% (Chile).

4. II. Describing SISBEN

5. II. Describing SISBEN
Institutional arrangements

6. III. SISBEN, national development plans and policies
Programs that use SISBEN
Institution
Programs that use SISBEN
Ministry of Health and Social Protection
Subsidized health regime
Ministry of Labor
Social protection for the elderly (Colombia Mayor)
A pension fund ( Fondo de Solidaridad Pensional Subcuenta de Subsistencia)
Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF)
Early childhood support (Community Welfare Homes, FAMI,
breakfasts for children)
A childcare program with National Ministry of Education (De Cero a siempre)
National Ministry of Education
School feeding
A cooperative fund to support school infrastructure expenses
Department for Social Prosperity
Más Familias en Acción
Extreme Poverty Net (Red Unidos)
Jóvenes en Acción
Colombian Institute for Overseas Studies (ICETEX)
Access with quality to higher education (ACCES credit)
Ministry of Agriculture
Rural housing
Integrated land and rural opportunities grant
Ministry of Housing
Family housing allowance
100,000 Free housing program
Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA)
Jóvenes Rurales
Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil
Exemption of payment to get the identity document
Fuerzas Militares-Ejército Nacional
Exemption of payment to get Libreta Militar
Source: Updating Annex 1, Conpes Social 117, 2010.

7. IV. SISBEN as a targeting tool: its impact
Two evaluations: one of SISBEN-I published in 2003 and the other of SISBEN-II included in a technical document supporting SISBEN-III’s design.
Assessment of quality and effectiveness of SISBEN-I:
Review of data and variables: data manipulation review, check the capacity of variables to discriminate poor and non-poor, identify variables that are important but had been excluded from the index and those that are outdated.
inclusion and exclusion errors: an inclusion error of 30.8% and an exclusion error of 18.8% of poor people.
SISBEN’s processing problems: SISBEN manager’s instability, lack of information among authorities and community.
Errors of inclusion and exclusion for SISBEN-II of 25.4% and 19.3%, respectively. Analysis of data manipulation and capacity of discrimination.

8. V. Lessons on transparency and traceability
Aspects related to the design
The index goes beyond income. It has the strength of measuring a household standard of living using capabilities approach.
Challenges:
Assess SISBEN’s ability to capture transient shocks such as the loss of employment that is considered just when it has permanent effects.
Take actions aiming to adopt complementary mechanisms to identify those who suffered transient shocks and avoid their permanent consequences.
Colombia is a diverse country, therefore the concept of vulnerability used at the individual and contextual level should be checked.
Assess which is the best statistical method: Principal Components Analysis or Fuzzy Sets. That which best fits needs and leads to lower errors of inclusion and exclusion must be selected.
It has been difficult to implement different cut-off points. Maybe, people just want to deal with 6 levels. But, it could be that being the score equal for all household members then, actions should be integrated by group.

9. V. Lessons on transparency and traceability
Participation and community empowerment
It must be discussed if it is possible to inform the interviewed what and how they are rating, that is publicize the weights. There are arguments in favor and against that procedure:
from one side it is known that it could generate perverse incentives,
from another side, it is considered that it may induce social control and community empowerment.
Despite data availability constraints, it may be considered to design an index supported by actual conceptual framework but using verifiable variables.
There is a lack of community participation scenarios to ensure a delivery of information that is correct and at the right time, a kind of information able to induce an effective community’s social control.
This requires adopting campaigns to make aware of what SISBEN means and how it works.

10. V. Lessons on transparency and traceability
SISBEN and social protection system
There are advances getting an individual targeting instrument used by most programs to identify beneficiaries.
This means that social protection system has enjoyed a reduction in costs avoiding different instruments. But SISBEN has also helped integrity and transparency of targeted actions.
Though there is progress in data base refining as a result of checking against administrative records, it is required to work on interoperability.
A pending task is to establish a clear and permanent feedback process between the institutions that assign benefits using SISBEN and NPD. This would increase the potential of SISBEN’s data base in terms of monitoring and evaluation.

11. Thanks