| Sumario: | Although targeting is usually a less than ideal approach to providing social protection, often it cannot be avoided in poor countries where many of the citizens face some kind of risk or vulnerability and resources are quite scarce. Despite the scarcity of resources to deal with the enormity of vulnerable cases, targeting criteria for programs eligibility are often not clearly defined. This article will examine policy design and implementation in terms of eligibility criteria that guarantee access to social protection interventions. It will review the design and implementation of some of the social protection policies in Nigeria since 1999 such as the National Poverty Alleviation Programme, the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, and the N-Power Programme. The key objective of this article is to investigate whether policy design and implementation strategies in these programs target the most needy, who ought to be reached first in resource redistribution programs when resources are inadequate to cover the entire population or group. This study employed a theoretical desk-based review and analysis of data available in official documents, media clips, and other secondary sources. It found that, as a result of widespread poverty and vulnerability, the government of Nigeria usually adopts a universal and promotional approach to social intervention. This approach leads to poor definition of eligibility in policy design and implementation, which provides the lacuna for missing the poorest of the poor. The study supports proper eligibility criteria that prioritize access in accordance with resources available vis-à-vis a population defined in a universalism-selectivism continuum that combines the principles of group-oriented allocation and normative criteria of equity and justice. In this way, the most needy and vulnerable persons can be reached in program design and implementation.
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