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Define social safety net? Elaborate different social safety net programs that are
particularly focused on Rural Development.

Introduction:

Bangladesh is a south Asian lower middle income country. Poverty rate of Bangladesh is 12.9
percent in 2015-16, according to World Bank. The current GDP rate is 7.5.

Many people still live in poverty. People especially women living in rural area are vulnerable
to poverty, natural calamities and other sorts of problems. The government takes specific
measures such as social safety net to solve those problems. Social safety net programs are
taken to tackle special situation. Bangladesh took many social safety net programs from time
to time especially focusing on rural area, women, vulnerable section and people affected by
natural calamities. These programs in most of the cases proved to be effective. The overall
goal of social safety net program is rural development.

The expenditure shown by finance ministry is Tk 37,546 crore this year for social safety net
program which accounts for 12.72 percent of the total budget and 2.19 percent of GDP. A
total 145 safety net schemes is currently in operation (Byron, 2016).

Social safety Net:

Social Safety Net programs are noncontributory measures designed to regular and predictable
support to poor and vulnerable people. They are also referred to as safety nets, social
assistance, or social transfers, and are a component of larger social protection systems. Some
of the social safety net programs in Bangladesh are Food for Work, Female Secondary School
Assistance Program, Stipend for Students with Disabilities, Capitation Grant for the Orphan
Students.

The Major Social Safety Net Program fall under the following categories

a. employment generation programs;

Government takes measures to create employment for the people living in the rural areas.
Food for Work (FFW) Program, 100-day Employment Generation program and Rural
Development Program are some the examples of such programs
b. Programs to cope with natural disasters and other shocks; Bangladesh is very vulnerable
to natural calamities and disaster. Natural calamities are frequent. Some of the social
safety net program taken by the government to serve in time of such emergency. It
includes Vulnerable Group Feeding, Gratuitous Relief etc.

c. Incentives provided to parents for their childrens education: The illiteracy rate is in
decline. The government is working on eliminating illiteracy from the country. As a
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manifestation of government effort there are many social safety net programs currently
running in Bangladesh which give incentives to the parents to send their children to
school. Female Secondary School assistance Program (FSSAP), primary school stipend
program, school feeding programs, Grants for the Schools for the Disabled, Reaching
Out-of-School Children Project.

d. Incentives provided to families to improve their health status. Maternity Allowance for
Poor lactating Mothers, Protection for the Children at Risk etc.

Safety net is provided in kinds or cash: Some social safety nets are provided in cash and
some are provided in kind.

Transfer in Cash Transfer in Kind

Old Age Allowance Test Relief
Allowances for the Widow, Deserted Food Support for Chittagong Hill
and Destitute Women Vulnerable Group Feeding
Allowances for the Financially Gratuitous Relief
Insolvent Disable Food for Works
Maternity Allowance Program for the
Poor Lactating Mother
Allowances for Urban Low-
Income Lactating Mothers
Honorarium & Medical Allowances for
Injured Freedom Fighter
Stipend for Disabled Students
Grants for the Schools for the Disabled

Review of different SSNPs Focused on RD:

Some of the social safety net programs are reviewed

A. Employment Generation Programs:

The government took many programs considering the unemployment and underemployment
of rural people. These programs are Food for Work Program, Rural Development Program
The 100-day Employment Generation Program.

Food for Works

The Food for Works program started after the 1774 famine of Bangladesh and the
government tried to meet the basic food needs with this program. The government provided
poor food donated by other countries. This FFW projects, administrated by WFP and CARE,
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implemented by sever ministries and government departments. Participation in this program

was self-selecting.

The aims this project was:

1. Improve the performance of the agriculture sector through the construction and
maintenance of infrastructure for production and marketing;
2. to reduce physical damage and loss of human life due to floods and other natural
disasters through appropriate protective structures; and
3. to generate productive seasonal employment for the rural poor

Selection Criteria:

1. People who are functionally landless

2. People who lack productive Resources

100-day employment generation

100-day employment generation program was launched in 2009 with aims to

A) create employment for extreme rural poor unemployed people,

B) Increase purchasing power of the extreme poor people affected by price hike,
C) Create wealth for the people and the nation,
D) Develop and maintain small scale rural infrastructure and communication system
(Jahan, 2010).

Selection Criteria

The beneficiaries to be selected based on these criteria set out by the government

a) Extreme poor and permanent capable resident and marginal farmers in rural areas
including river erosion, Monga prone, Haor Baor and char areas.

b) Eager to work but unemployed and unskilled poor person.

c) National identity card to be considered their identity

d) 18 to 50 years old capable person

e) One person from a family eligible to get work.

f) Landless having less than 0.05 acre and low income person (Male or female) who had no
pond for fish culture and had mentionable animal resources.

g) A person receiving other safety net programs will not be eligible (Jahan, 2010).

e. Programs to cope with natural disasters and other shocks

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Vulnerable Group Feeding or VGF

This social safety net program started to provide food and other emergency assistance to
disaster victims. This program was launched in Bangladesh in 1975. It helps the poor
cope with flood and other natural disasters.

Selection Criteria:
Disaster and Natural calamities

Vulnerable Group Development

This program aimed at developing life skills for women through training, motivating
savings, providing scope for availing credit building social awareness on disaster
management and nutrition through training in groups.

Selection Criteria:

Households with not more than 15 acres of land

Households with income less than TK. 300 dependent upon seasonal wage employment
Women productive age
Day labor or temporary worker
Households with little or no productive assets

Gratuitous Relief

To provide relief and other short term emergency assistance to disaster victims
Criteria
Disaster and Calamities victim
f. Incentives provided to parents for their childrens education:

Food for Education Program:

Food for Education Program or FFE was launched in 1993. This was designed to improve
human capital through education and transfer food to poor housholds.

Selection criteria:

(1) Landless or owning less than 0.05 acre land

(2) Principal occupation of household to be day laborer
(3)Female-headed household (widowed, separated from husband, divorced, or having a
disabled husband); and
(4) Low-income professions

Those who are covered under Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) program or the
Rural Maintenance Program (RMP) or any other social safety net programs are not
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eligible for this program.

Selected beneficiaries receive a maximum free ration of 20 kilograms (kg) of wheat or 16

kg of rice per month for sending its children to a primary school. If a household has only
one primary school-age (6 to 10 years) child and he or she attends school, then that
household is entitled to receive 15 kg of wheat or 12 kg of rice per month. To be eligible
for 30 kg of wheat or 16 kg of rice, a household is required to send more than one and all
primary school-age children to school. The attendance must be 85 percent of the classes
to be eligible for wheat in each month.

Primary Education Stipend Program (PEST):

This project is aimed at increasing primary enrollment, school attendance and reducing
dropouts, child labor and poverty.

Selection criteria:

Children from female headed households where head of the household is

widowed, deserted and destitute
children from households where head of the households are day labors
Family of low income professionals
Landless or households that won not more than 5 acres of land

School Feeding Program:

This program titled School Feeding in Poverty Prone areas was introduced to increase
primary school enrollment, increase attendance. This program also focused on nutrition
and implemented at the poorest areas. The package of 75 grams of vitamin and mineral
fortified biscuits was provided to 2.5 million school children. The fortified biscuits meet
67 percent of calorie needs of each child each day (WFP, 2012).

The overall goal of this program was to achieve MDG-2, achieving universal primary
education.

Objectives:

Ensuring universal primary education by 2015

Raising enrollment to 100 percent

Female Secondary Stipend Program:

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Female secondary stipend program which was aimed to increase girls enrollment in
secondary level school, refraining girls from early marriage, increase the participation of
educated women in social and economic activites, increase social status of women,
provide skills training. It was found that this project has significant impact on the
enrollment of female students (Fuwa, 2001).

g. Incentives provided to families to improve their health status:

Maternal Health Voucher Scheme

The government took various initiatives to improve health status rural people. Maternal
health Voucher Scheme or MHVS, for example, was taken by government to improve
health status of poor people. MHVS provides subsides specific services to the target
group to enable them buy the services. The overall goal of MHVS is to reduce maternal
mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate by raising awareness and demand for maternal
health services and providing institutional delivery (Barkat-e-khuda, 20011).

The benefits of MHVS are thre ANC visits , safe delivery, one PNC visit within 6 weeks
of delivery, services for obstetric complications 200 taka for transport cost for institution
services, up to 500 taka for referral to district hospital and cash of 2000 taka to the mother
(Barkat-e-khuda, 20011).

Problems in Implementation:
Leakage of benefit

Leakage is defined as diversion of benefit to a non-targeted group from targeted group.

Leakage in food for work program can be over reporting of works done. Subsidized rice is
sold in market rather than giving to the beneficiary is leakage of benefit. There is leakage of
benefit of social safety net programs. The leakage of benefit must be minimized to reach out
the targeted group.

Inspection by higher officials:

Inspection by higher officials checks corruption and facilitate smooth implementation of the
programs. These projects are not properly inspected by the officials concerned. As a result the
intended groups are missed out for corruption.

Lack of coordination in Upazila Administration

There is lack of coordination in the officials responsible for implementation. Due to lack of
transparency works are duplicated and some get more the benefits and some are deprived.

Amount of the benefit:

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The amount of benefit provided is not sufficient. The Old Age, AWDDW allowance, for
example, is 300 Taka which hardly help meet the basic needs. The amount of benefit should
be increased. The number of people covered under different social safety nets hardly meets
the actual number of people needing these benefits. 2.73 million People are covered under old
age allowance widow, abandoned and destitute women allowance covered 1.012 million, and
insolvent disabled persons allowance covered 400,000 which are not enough to include all the
people needing old age allowance (Dhaka Tribune, 2016).

Error in Targeted Group Selection:

Authority responsible in implementing these programs often indulges in corruption or seeks

loopholes to use their advantages. Local representative, for example, give VGF card to the
solvent rather than the people aimed for. They try to mobilize their voters abusing these
programs (Dhaka Tribune, 2016). Many of the criteria set out for selecting targeted group are
unclear and these unclear criteria of beneficiary selection result in low implementation of a
program as targeted group does not get the benefit.

Lack of comprehensive policy

There are at least 13 ministries involved in social safety net programs implementation.
Involvement of multiple ministries in one program creates overlapping of work and there is
lack of coordination among those ministries (Ahmed, 2007).

Persistence corruption:

Corruption in social safety net programs is endemic. It is often seen that subsidized rice is
being sold in the market. The card supposed to give to the poor is often distributed to the
solvent and powerful people. It was found that 27 percent beneficiary is not poor (Khan,
2016). This is due to lack of comprehensive policy, lack of inspection, and administrative
inefficiency.

Conclusion:

Social Safety Nets are effective in developing rural areas. Social safety nets targets various
key points to help those people who are extremely poor. They benefited the poor people
despite having some problems in implementation stage. The leakage of benefit, corruption,
lack of transparency, inspection, comprehensive policy, coordination and strong commitment
to serve the poor, duplication of works are some of the major problems found in
implementation stage. These problems deserve attention of the government.
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References

Ahmed, S. S. (2007, October). Social Safety Nets in Bangladesh. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from
worldbank.org: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/BANGLADESHEXTN/Resources/295759-
1240185591585/BangladeshSocialSafetyNets.pdf

Barkat-e-khuda. (20 June, 2011). Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh: A Review.
Bangladesh Development Studies, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2.

Byron, R. K. (2016, May 10). Safety net spending to rise 19pc next fiscal year. Retrieved November
10, 2016, from thedailystar.net: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/safety-net-spending-rise-
19pc-next-fiscal-year-1221247

Dhaka Tribune. (2016, September 7). The solvent, not poor, get VGF cards. Retrieved November 10,
2016, from dhakatribune.com: http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/09/07/solvent-
not-poor-gets-vgf-card/

Dhakatribune. (2015, June 4). Number of beneficiaries for old age, disabled and other allowances to
increas - See more at: http://archive.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/jun/04/number-
beneficiaries-old-age-disabled-and-other-allowances-increas#sthash.wbMsjtIA.dpuf.
Retrieved November 5, 2016, from Dhakatribune.com:
http://archive.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/jun/04/number-beneficiaries-old-age-
disabled-and-other-allowances-increas

Fuwa, N. (2001). The Net Impact of the Female Secondary. Retrieved November 10, 2016, from
https://core.ac.uk/: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6664775.pdf?repositoryId=153

Jahan, R. (2010). Dynamics of Implementation of 100 Days Employment Generation Programme: A

Study of Mouchak and Holdia Union Parishads . Retrieved November 10, 2016, from
http://www.mppg-nsu.org/: http://www.mppg-nsu.org/attachments/119_Thesis%20of
%20Rownak.pdf

Khan, S. (2016, November 10). Who are the real beneficiaries of social safety net progs? Retrieved
November 6, 16, from thefinancialexpress.com: http://www.thefinancialexpress-
bd.com/2016/10/27/50868/Who-are-the-real-beneficiaries-of-social-safety-net-progs?

WFP. (2012). School Feeding Programme in Poverty-Prone Areas. World Food Program.