National Forum for Social Protection (NFSP), comprising 44 individuals and organisations, was launched yesterday to monitor the effectiveness and impact of social safety on the beneficiaries of the government projects of social protection for the poor.
The government has been running a programme from 2013 titled Strengthening Government Social Protection for the Poor (SGSP) with the support of UK and Australian government which will end in 2017.
Ministries of Finance and other six line ministries, UNDP, WFP, World Bank and Manusher Jonno Foundation are also the partners in the SGSP project.
Bangladesh government is spending Tk267bn, 2% of the GDP, on this social protection project.
NFSP, a civil society component, will be implemented by Manusher Jonno Foundation to get feedback on the effectiveness of the government projects from the poor who are the beneficiaries of the different social protection schemes. The NFSP will then inform the findings to the national policy formulators and relevant authorities to improve governance in the sector.
NFSP in its baseline survey unearthed some loopholes with the SGSP projects. In the survey 84% respondents said the selection process of the SGSP beneficiaries was not done transparently. The survey also found that the selection process had been influenced politically.
It was also determined that Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) project beneficiaries get 25kg of rice instead of 30kg. Ninty-eight percent VGD beneficiaries reported of not getting training while other project beneficiaries also faced disbursement irregularities.
During disbursement of the of the Old Age Allowance (OAA) and Allowances for Financially Insolvent Disabled (AFID) the banks deduct 10% of the amount from the beneficiaries’ accounts.
In the baseline survey of NFSP it is also revealed that a grievance mechanism does not exist at all in the government’s social protection programme. A statistic showed, out of 1,781 beneficiaries only 15 people lodged verbal complaints to the elected representatives. The beneficiaries are not even aware of where and whom to go for lodging complaints.
Beneficiaries also complained of weak monitoring mechanism during the NFSP survey, which also found that a complete database for eligible households was lacking.
In the launching programme of the NFSP the State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Meher Afroze Chumki and the Joint Secretary (social protection) of Ministry of Social Welfare Nurul Kabir Siddiqui were present.
Denying the findings of the baseline survey, the joint secretary claimed banks are not deducting the amounts mentioned any more after a discussion between the government and the Bangladesh Bank.
Terming the expectation of malpractice and corruption free projects absurd, the secretary told everyone related to the projects to be pragmatic and practical to keep corruption and malpractice under control.
Siddiqui also suggested the NFSP identify the positive aspects of the projects alongside the negative ones.
State Minister Chumki supported the NFSP’s recommendation of improving citizen engagement in the projects, establishment of socio economic household database, and strengthening coordination among the elected representatives and community people where the projects are running to enhance accountability and transparency.
She also said: “Because of our government’s initiatives, over 8.8 lakh beneficiaries are now covered by the social protection projects. Because of these projects the country’s poverty rate is now 24% and extreme poverty rate is 12%, which were 48% and 24% respectively six years back.”
She also expressed her expectation that the country will become a middle income country before the government’s estimated time of 2021.
Country representative of DFID Sarah Cooke was also present among others in the inauguration programme of the NFSP.