Four cash transfer programmes are part of what is known as the National Safety Net Programme in Kenya. Current targeting practice of each intervention entails the use different proxy means tests based on the estimation of consumption expenditure from household surveys. This paper presents the new Living Conditions Score (LCS), a proxy means test, which harmonized the identification of households in poverty based on an alternative categorical principal component analysis. Richer household information from the latest national census is employed in this analysis. The new LCS is supported by lower inclusion and exclusion errors as well as better internal validity in identifying households with the lowest living conditions.
