The Impact of Zakat Programs from Human Development Perspectives: An Empirical Evaluation

This chapter analyzes the impact of Zakat on to the welfare of household of Zakat recipient (mustahiq). This study utilized human development index (HDI) as the indicator of welfare, which has been disaggregated at household level. The study performed two times repeated questionnaires to get the sample, and distributed to beneficiaries of productive-based Zakat who have received funding from Zakat institutions through two-stage cluster sampling. The study suggests that the level of human development index of household who receives productive-based Zakat is significantly higher than the first period. Moreover, through panel data regression, the results show that the variable of productive-based Zakat is positively correlated with the level of HDI. Therefore, it can be concluded that Zakat, particularly productive-based Zakat, can play important role to improve the welfare of poor household.