The main thrust of each year's budget is on social protection of the poor segment of the people. All governments in power had so far allocated sizeable budgetary funds for improving the lot of the people below the poverty line. But as indications have it, most of the funds go to the pockets of vested groups in society. A national seminar on social protection, organised by the CARE Bangladesh held on Friday, was told that the government's social safety net programme has desirably failed to improve the life of poor people since about 60 per cent of total allocation goes to the non-poor people. As a result, due to slowing down of poverty reduction efforts over the last few years, the number of population living under poverty line is still increasing. While policymakers are busy preparing the 2014-15 budget, it is incumbent on them to devise ways and means to plugging the holes through which precious national resources go waste and suggest how the allocated funds could directly help improve their living conditions.
An estimate has shown, the government provides, on an average, 12 per cent of its total budget for social protection programmes. The allocation rose to around 14 per cent of the total budget during the fiscal 2009-2012 due to food and energy crises globally. Though the figure looks lower in percentage, the actual amount has been on a steady rise as the budget size has increased over the years. Currently, Bangladesh has 95 social protection programmes that are being implemented by 22 ministries and 35 agencies. The allocation for the safety net schemes was estimated at $2.9 billion for the fiscal 2012-13, amounting to 2.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The sixth Five-Year-Plan envisages that it rise to 3.0 per cent of GDP in 2015.
Even the UNDP has expressed its concern over misuse of funds in the name of the social protection schemes. That is why it recently called for sustained political leadership, a sense of urgency in actions, allocation of sufficient national resources and integrity of the programmes and their implementation for a comprehensive social protection system. This is how Bangladesh can achieve, in record time, the objectives of social protection, of sustainable, equitable economic growth and of middle income status, it said. The UNDP has made it clear that it could not think of social protection as an issue to be addressed over the next several decades.
The challenges to widening the coverage of the safety net schemes are targeting the beneficiaries, leakages and disparity in regional distribution, according to the government's sixth Five-Year Plan. More than 11 per cent of the households took benefits from at least three schemes and at least 27 per cent people under the 'vulnerable group development' project were not poor, the Plan found. The wastage was 26 per cent in the 'food for work' programme, the Plan said quoting a study report.
That is why the World Bank has rightly tagged a condition - its fund will be disbursed only when the government will ensure that at least 70 per cent of the amount reaches the target groups. It is against this backdrop that the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics needs to be strengthened aimed at building an international-standard database on the poor capable of identifying their characteristics. Each poor household should be given an identity card on the basis of the database, which will check misuse of funds. The elected local government machinery like the union parishad and the upazila parishad should be effectively involved to monitor use of funds for social protection.
