not registered in the school records. Complaints were also raised in the community that families
without school age children were excluded. These observations illustrate the more general point
that it is often very difficult to reach the most vulnerable in a community. Simple distribution
mechanisms, which have administrative and cost advantages, often exclude the poorest, because
they do not fully participate in community life.

 As of January 1996, a sustainable monitoring system, Monitoring for Empowerment
(M4E), has been put in place. This is not linked specifically to relief food but is aimed at
assisting in targeting any kind of intervention. Data are collected through the Ministries of Health
and Agriculture and can be used to develop appropriate targeting indicators at the EPA level. The
MASAF project is currently using three variables to prioritise EPAs for involvement in their
community-based projects.

3. Appropriate Targeting Strategies

 The appropriate indicators to use for targeting depend on the objective of the project or
program, its proposed coverage, its design and
what it is delivering. For a few programs,
this will be very straightforward. For
example, WFP's program of supplementary
feeding through Nutrition Rehabilitation Units
is nationwide, and targets severely 1 1994/95 DROUGHT
malnourished

children and their families. Food is delivered
to a target clearly identified by medical staff,
and there are adequate resources to cover all
who fall into this category. No additional
targeting mechanism is needed.

 However, most programmes do not
have the resources for nationwide
implementation. Geographical targeting based
on the FEWS monitoring system is a good
starting point, particularly for programs which ..
depend to some extent on local administrative -""
structures for program support and *
administration. The FEWS system can rank
EPAs according to combinations of
appropriate indicators. This will enable the
identification of the most appropriate EPAs in
which to start program implementation.
 Figure 1