• Introduction to targeting
• How should I approach targeting?
• Targeting by level of vulnerability: Who is most vulnerable?
• Geographic Targeting:  Where do you find more OVC?
• How do I set constraints on the number of children assisted?
• How identify eligible children at the community level?
• What if community-based methods are not possible? 
• What about children outside family care?
• Is there a role for (public) institutions?

Is there a role for (public) institutions?

A final way to identify eligible beneficiaries for your project is through a government institution, or a government or private project already in place. Children at the bottom of the vulnerability spiral, for example, can often be identified with the help of police and police records, or through juvenile detention centers. In many African countries the police force is ill equipped to deal with these children, especially if they are victims rather than offenders, and will thus hand them over to a government institution or an NGO to shelter them. Children who have been associated with armed groups might be in the temporary custody of the national armed forces, while yet other children can be referred to the project from public health care centers.

In Benin there is a frequently used and widely known hotline (no 16), where neighbors, teachers and other community members can call in their concerns to the Child Protection Brigade (BPM), which is a branch of the police. The BPM then hands OVC over to relevant NGO projects – the trafficking victims to one project, neglected infants to another, children in conflict with the law to a third, children with disabilities to a fourth and abuse cases to a fifth, etc. These projects that way have an implicit targeting mechanism through “community reporting”, via the police.