Around two-thirds of respondents think prices of essential commodities go up typically after a national budget is announced, finds a survey on impact of national budget on public life, particularly on the poor and extreme poor communities.
Meanwhile, one-fifth of them think that yearly budget announcement has nominal effect on public life while another 17% do not have any idea what a national budget is all about.
The survey was carried out as part of an ongoing bigger research work to comprehensively measure the impact of the national budgets on the poor and extreme poor, people residing at the bottom of the income pyramid.
BRAC, and research bodies iSocial and Unnayan Shamannay have undertaken this 7-year research spanning from 2019 to 2025.
The survey findings were presented at a press conference titled "National Budget 2019-2020: Impact on the poor and extreme poor" at the CIRDAP auditorium in the capital on Tuesday.
The organizers said through this research a robust data model was being developed, which was based on all relevant macro-economic variables and policy actions.
The data model, once fully developed, will help run simulation to check impact and implications of small changes in macroeconomic decisions on household economy and marginalized individuals.
It will also help identify gaps and priorities so that macroeconomic decision making become more cohesive and inclusive.
The speakers further said a major area of work for the research was to rigorously measure the impact of many different economic variables and policy implementation on economic activities, decision making and overall wellbeing at household level.
Former Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Nazneen Ahmed, economist and chief executive officer of Infolady Social Enterprise Limited (iSocial) Ananya Raihan and director of BRAC KAM Morshed joined the panel discussion at the event.
Atiur Rahman said: "Readymade garment factory workers may lose their job any time when they reach middle age. When they return home empty-handed after being fired, they lose respect in the eye of other members of their families. A pension scheme for such workers will be highly beneficial. Such schemes will help boost the socio-economic development of all people across class. Most of the respondents in this survey have urged the government to increase both initiatives and subsidies in the sectors of education, healthcare and youth employment."
Nazneen Ahmed said: "The pace of development of the poor people is very slow when you compare it with that of the well off. The consequence is obvious. It increases inequalities."
KAM Morshed said: "It is true that allocations should be increased. At the same time, close monitoring mechanisms are rightly placed to check whether the existing allocations are properly utilized, and social security services are reached to the right people."
The organisers said the survey was done on a total of 4,800 randomly selected respondents, divided in 12 categories from three economic strata, namely extreme poor, poor and middle income.
