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Thursday March 28, 2024

WB expanding Pak social safety net system

By Mehtab Haider
April 19, 2016

ISLAMABAD: After validating the latest poverty figures of 60 million or 29 percent population, living below the poverty line in Pakistan, the World Bank (WB) is preparing $100 million follow up project for Islamabad to further expand social safety net system in the country.

A WB mission is scheduled to visit Pakistan during this ongoing month to extend deadline for three components out of four for the ongoing Social Safety Net Technical Assistance Project of $60 million from June 2016 to December 2016 upon the request of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. 

“In view of good progress on BISP, the WB is now working with the government in preparing a follow up on safety net programme,” the WB’s spokesperson in Islamabad replied briefly when The News contacted on Monday.

However, according to WB’s documents stating that supported by IDA’s technical assistance since 2009, Pakistan has established the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), a flagship national safety net system, which is one of the largest in South Asia. BISP currently provides income support in the form of predictable monthly cash transfers of $15 to almost 5.2 million families (approx. 20 million people) of the poorest households for consumption smoothing as well as investments in human capital development.

Up to the present time more than $3.5 billion has been disbursed to BISP beneficiaries out of whom 93% of beneficiaries receive the cash transfers through technology based payment mechanisms (Debit Cards, Mobile Phones, Smart Cards). The programme plans to reach 5.3 million families in the next financial year.

The programme has successfully established a National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) through the use of an objective targeting system, hosting a database of more than 27 million households (approx 167 million people) the first in South Asia. More than 30 federal and provincial social sector programes are currently using the Registry to improve their pro-poor targeting performance. BISP plans to launch update of the NSER within the current FY and complete the exercise by end of CY 2017.

BISP has also rolled out the co-responsibility cash transfers (CCT) programme, linking cash transfers to primary school education, which is currently being implemented in 32 districts in all provinces and regions. To date, over 1.3 million children have been enrolled in the programme out of which over 1.15 million children have taken admission in schools. As BISP delivers the benefit transfers to female members of the beneficiary families, it has significantly contributed to women empowerment and financial inclusion agenda in the country.   

According to a recent revision in the poverty measurement methodology and release of poverty numbers, around 29% of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line and a significant proportion is vulnerable to poverty due to any adverse natural or idiosyncratic shock. Before the start of BISP in 2008, the country’s main safety net programmes (ie Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal, and Zakat) had limited coverage and were poorly targeted, as around 25 and 32 percent of resources distributed by these programmes respectively, were going to non-poor households. Additionally, administration arrangements were inadequate and implementation and monitoring and evaluation capacity were very weak. 

In absence of an updated national social protection framework, the federal-provincial coordination on the design and delivery of complementary services to the poor remained weak. Consequently, the sector faced fragmentation of various initiatives due to absence of a policy, platform and credible systems, which could support sector consolidation. While the


federal expenditures (as % of GDP) have seen a significant increase post launching of BISP, the provinces have yet to pick up their investments in targeted programmes due to either lack of appropriate institutional arrangements or well-designed and implemented complementary programmes targeted to the poor and vulnerable.

The WB, according to the document, stays committed to supporting the Government of Pakistan in advancing the social protection agenda as part of its ongoing economic and subsidy reforms, which insulate the poor from any adverse impacts by providing income support as well as access to human development. 

The federal engagement will continue to focus on social safety net (SSN) system development agenda through, among others, update of the National Socio-economic Registry, scaling-up of the conditional cash transfers (CCTs) encouraging federal-provincial partnership and linking BISP beneficiaries to social and productive complementary services. These areas will be supported by the proposed National SP Project currently being prepared for Board presentation later this year. The provincial engagement will support the reforms in existing pro-poor initiatives by capitalizing on the federal SSN systems for effective service delivery to the poor and aligning investments in the complementary areas to allow the poor to graduate out of poverty.