The existing safety-net programmes in Bangladesh are marred by fragmentation, weak targeting and inefficiency, the World Bank (WB) said in its Bangladesh Social Protection & Labour Review Report released last week.
The report came amid allegations that the well-off people linked with 'powerful' quarters have been awarded cards. But such cards should have gone only to the poor.
The WB, in its report, advised the government to merge its overlapping social safety-net programmes, introduce a unified target, improve administrative efficiency and enhance monitoring so that the benefits do reach those who need them the most.
Recent media reports suggest that the people, having overt and covert 'political' connections with the 'powerful' quarters, are selling rice, meant to be sold to the poor for Tk 10 per kilogramme (kg), to their well-off relatives or in the black market.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, however, has asserted that these programmes have largely benefited the targeted groups, while admitting some flaws in subsidised rice-selling in some places.
At the local level, more than half of the cards that were allocated for taking the benefits of the social safety net programmes, have allegedly been distributed through recourse to bribery. Those bribing the Union Parishad (UP) members can never reach the target group of people for whom the benefits are intended.
The government has allocated Tk 452.30 billion under the social safety-net programmes this fiscal year. The allocation is 2.31 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 13.28 per cent of the overall budget allocation.
What is happening in rural areas is that the people there tend to sell their votes to the local leaders in UP elections and buy 'cards' for taking the advantage of safety-net programmes from those who are elected. In such a way, the extreme poor - the intended targeted ones for such programmes — are deprived, as the card-buyers are not exactly such ones. This is why the safety-net programmes are not reaching the target group.
The social safety-net programmes have some major objectives in any Third World economy, one of which is helping the most economically vulnerable ones so that they do not fall below the certain level of poverty. But the amount the governments in the developing countries spend for these programmes are simply not enough to fulfil the target, largely because of budgetary constraints.
Many of the country's existing safety-net programmes are directly handled by the local government. The UP chairmen and members are tasked with the responsibility of managing such major programmes like Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), Food For Work (FFW), Test Relief (TR), Gratuitous Relief (GR) etc.
The Awami League-led government introduced social safety net programmes in 1996. At least 142 such programmes are in operation now.
The government, as the planning minister said, has taken steps to address the faults and failures in the distribution of rice at subsidised rates. It believes that the country will be able to reach its target on cutting extreme poverty well before the United Nations (UN)-fixed deadline of 2030.
For streamlining the programmes, the WB, however, said that the first step should be purported to rationalising the delivery of scarce resources among the poor in order to consolidate those having overlapping objectives and functions. It called for improving implementation efficiency, as inefficiencies creep in, because of weak administrative capacity and systemic flaws. There is no denying that such inefficiencies do increase the scope for fraud and corruption. This is particularly prominent in food-based social safety-net programmes, the WB report pointed out.
The WB also recommended for strengthening the administrative system while phasing out the food-based social safety net programmes. The practice of monitoring and evaluating programme effectiveness is not very common in Bangladesh. As such, it pointed to the need for improvement in the area.
The effectiveness of the social safety-net, analysts do also agree, are undermined by weak targeting, inefficiency and fragmentation, and these have to be addressed, before further expanding their coverage.
Studies have shown that the average benefit of social safety-net programmes in Bangladesh is falling, in real terms, in many cases. There has been considerable leakage of allocated funds and 27 per cent of the beneficiaries have thus been found to be the non-poor.
Creating more, better and inclusive jobs are critical for Bangladesh to benefit from its ongoing favourable demographic transition and progress in human development. Here, social safety-net programmes can play a useful role.
The quality of jobs in Bangladesh is also an issue of concern for many workers, as one-third of the male and half of the female workers are either engaged in unpaid family work or work as day labourers.
In this context, community-based adaptive social protection programmes merit a priority attention in order to address the country's poverty-related issues and to cope with any adverse situation in the aftermath of any disaster. It is time to rethink how the local adaptation can be made climate resilient-one for ensuring effective participation of local people.
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Source: The Financial Express