Incentives are often needed to advance the selection of women and vulnerable groups as project beneficiaries. When using a scoring system to select beneficiaries, simply awarding higher points for inclusion of women and low-income groups may not be sufficient to gain their participation. The Peri-Urban Rangeland Project (PURP) shortlisted herder group applicants based on those who passed a minimum score using established scoring criteria; these criteria included more points for the inclusion of low income and women-headed households. However, the final beneficiary herder groups did not include many women-headed or lower income households. This could have been due to more points also given for herders for socioeconomic factors and animal husbandry experience such as owning fodder and dairy processing equipment and experience in milk and meat sales. Herder groups also were required to repay a notable part of the cost of PURP-supplied wells and funds for materials for fencing and animal shelters, so herder applicants may not have been as willing to include herder households with lower incomes and less experience. MCC may want to ensure the project concept works first before expanding to households who may have less ability to succeed. However, if participation by women and vulnerable groups is key to the project, MCC should consider alternative methods to ensure participation by these groups, such as a quota. As there are various factors at hand in each environment and intervention that could influence beneficiary selection, program designers should consider in each situation the specific drivers of women and vulnerable group participation in that context.
Lesson Learned