Are the rightful beneficiaries getting social protection?
According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016-17, an estimated 46.5 percent of those who received benefits under social protection programmes in Bangladesh were erroneously selected, meaning they did not meet the selection criteria. Meanwhile, 71 percent of poor individuals who did meet the selection criteria were left out of social protection benefits. While these high error rates are concerning, a recent study by BRAC indicates an even more troubling concern: the poorest households tend to be excluded more than those slightly better off.
The significant exclusion is not caused by budget constraints or low coverage. In recent years, key social protection programmes have expanded substantially. Let's examine the coverage of six key programmes: Mother and Child Benefit Programme (MCBP), disability allowance, widow allowance, Food Friendly Programme (FFP), Vulnerable Women's Benefit (VWB), and Old Age Allowance (OAA). These social safety schemes alone are expected to reach 1.9 crore individuals in 2023-24, which is sufficient to cover all households below the poverty line. It is worth noting that, according to the 2022 HIES data, approximately 23 lakh households currently live below the lower poverty line, while 77 lakh live below the upper poverty line.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The poorer the families are, the weaker they are in terms of these aspects. For example, many extreme poor families are exploited by UP members, who collect their papers (e.g., national ID) with the promise to assist with the application process, but they never provide updates. These poor families lack the ability to lobby with UP members or the power to protest. Due to weak social networks, they cannot find any influential person to advocate for them or hold the UP members accountable.
The BRAC study assessed the accessibility of newly enrolled participants in its Ultra Poor Graduation (UPG) programme to the aforementioned six social protection schemes in the Barind region of Rajshahi division. The UPG approach, also known as the graduation approach, earned global recognition and has been replicated in 50 countries for its effectiveness in addressing extreme poverty. Typically, UPG participants represent the poorest households in the working villages, selected through a rigorous process involving community-based wealth ranking and house-to-house surveys. Therefore, all the UPG participants are likely to be eligible for benefits from social protection programmes. However, the study revealed that a staggering 75 percent of participants did not benefit from any of the six programmes, underscoring the concern mentioned above.
Insights from consultations with the extreme poor communities and other stakeholders shed light on the underlying causes for such exclusion. Broadly speaking, the extreme poor tend to be excluded in two ways. First, due to flaws in the existing selection system including outdated selection criteria, lack of monitoring and evaluation and lack of accountability. The selection criteria have not been updated to align with the objective of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSSS), which aims to address life cycle risks faced by citizens at different phases of life such as pregnancy, early childhood, school age, working age, and old age. Moreover, they have not been adjusted to reflect changes in socioeconomic conditions and increased coverage. For instance, the income threshold for Old Age Allowance (OAA) is only Tk 10,000 per year, far lower than the per capita income below the lower poverty line. Identifying 58 lakh (expected coverage in 2023-24) elderly persons with such a low income would be hard. Consequently, only 12 percent of the recipients of OAA meet the selection criteria.
Similarly, the land ownership threshold is very narrow, e.g., up to 15 decimals for the Vulnerable Women's Benefit (VWB) programme. This potentially excludes many who may own slightly more land, despite being poor. The HIES 2022 data shows that people owning 50 decimals or more land could be poor or extreme poor. Due to these outdated selection criteria, the union parishads (UP) enjoy discretionary power in selecting the recipients without being held accountable. This practice perpetuates patronage and nepotism, often favouring the better off having connections with the UP members over those in extreme poverty.
The second contributing factor lies in the conditions of the extreme poor themselves, including a lack of voice to demand their rights, weak negotiating power, and weak social networks. The poorer the families are, the weaker they are in terms of these aspects. For example, many extreme poor families are exploited by UP members, who collect their papers (e.g., national ID) with the promise to assist with the application process, but they never provide updates. These poor families lack the ability to lobby with UP members or the power to protest. Due to weak social networks, they cannot find any influential person to advocate for them or hold the UP members accountable. Many consider it not worth incurring transportation costs and sacrificing wages to visit the UP, as the likelihood of success is low. Consequently, a large section of the extreme poor does not apply for social protection.
Indigenous people living in the Barind areas also face exclusion due to powerlessness. Their limited access to the Food Friendly Programme (FFP) is noteworthy. FFP provides food transfer to 65 lakh people, to address seasonal food insecurity. Most of the Indigenous people are agricultural day labourers and encounter scarcity of work before the harvest of boro and aman paddies. As a result, they do not have any income and experience severe food insecurity for around five months of the year. Despite their dire needs and FFP's coverage being sufficient to support all extreme poor households in the country, its reach among the Indigenous households is insignificant.
While the selection mechanism of social protection programmes needs reform to address its inherent flaws, it must also take a proactive approach to tackle the exclusion of the extreme poor. The NSSS articulates the vision of establishing a comprehensive and inclusive social protection system. Without a robust selection mechanism capable of identifying the most deserving families, the vision will remain unfulfilled. A perfect selection system for social protection does not exist anywhere in the world that could be replicated. We need to devise a system appropriate to our context, incorporating lessons from international best practices. Undertaking thorough research to identify the challenges and opportunities may be a good starting point.
Fazley Elahi Mahmud is a social protection specialist and international consultant on social protection. He can be reached at fazleyelahi.mahmud@gmail.com
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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