Community perceptions of pre-identification results and methods in six health equity funds areas in Cambodia

In Cambodia, different methods are used to pre-identify poor households as eligible beneficiaries for support by a health equity fund. This paper reviews the experience in six different schemes; the perspective of local actors is taken. Our postulate is that the perceived fairness of the HEF preidentification is an important measure of the quality of the targeting process, one which is relatively simple to measure, as well as an important condition enabling the scheme to function properly and to receive ongoing community support. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with local staff involved in the health equity fund program, with village authorities and with beneficiaries. The study shows that pre-identification is carried out in different manners across the schemes: different stakeholders are involved, different eligibility criteria are used and different processes are followed for making lists and enrolling poor households into the scheme. Interviews with beneficiaries suggest that in all the six schemes, the pre-identification was well accepted and assessed. Local informants did not report major mistakes in terms of targeting, but are a precious source of information for making programs even better.