Changes in Social Safety Net to ensure Governance in Bangladesh

Abstract

<p><em>Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 as well as Bangladesh constitution has basic principles of ensuring human rights within the state mechanism. In line with the constitutional provision, Bangladesh Government has several ministries to support and promote social protection as a means of basic human rights. The constitution of Bangladesh in its clause 15(d) clearly declares to introduce the &lsquo;Social Security Program&rsquo;. The constitution spells &lsquo;the right to social security that is to say, to public assistance in cases of undeserved want arising from unemployment, illness or disablement, or suffered by widows or orphans or in old age or in other such cases&rsquo;. According to UNDP report (2009), since independence of Bangladesh in 1971, when 70 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line, the two major vehicles of social safety nets were food rations and relief work following disasters and other calamities. With the passage of time, when notable progress towards reducing widespread poverty was made, the country had to find better means of targeting. Such realization led to the emergence of new and sophisticated programs and abandonment of programs like food rations. Now Government has taken 145 social safety net programs with the help of different government departments. Now Bangladesh, on 2018 Poverty rate has now declined to 24.3 per cent from 31.5 percent in 2010 and extreme poverty rate has been reduced to 12.9 percent from 17.6 per cent (Economic Review Report 2017).Total allocation for social security was only Tk.373.2 crore in FY2005-06. This allocation has been raised to Tk.64,656 crore in FY2018-19, which is 2.55 per cent of GDP and 13.92 per cent of 22 total budget (Budget Speech 2018-19). &nbsp;In order to bring efficiency and effectiveness of social safety net programmes, Bangladesh follows the life cycle approach of social safety net. For this purpose, Bangladesh has already formulated &ldquo;National Social Security Strategy (NSSS)&rdquo;. The proper implementation of the NSSS through Social Safety Net Program (SSNP) will be deemed to be one of the essential conditions. For selection of the beneficiary of several SSNP there are some problems of overlapping and misallocation may go undetected because of inadequate program monitoring. To overcome the anomalies of this program and other government activities, government have taken Grievance Redress System guideline 2015 which is monitored by the Cabinet Division for ensuring governance. In this context, this paper will make an essence of procedural changes in SSNP (OAA, EGPP and VGD) and attempt by the government for ensuring governance.</em></p>

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