Cash transfers to Covid-hit households stressed

 
There is an urgent need to enhance cash transfers to the marginalized and affected households due to the Covid-19 as the pandemic-hit households urgently need to withstand the immediate loss of income and reduced expenditure, said speakers.

They came up with the observations on Thursday at the virtual national dialogue on Social Protection and Employment in Budget FY2021-22: Was the focus adequate?

The dialogue was organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Oxfam in Bangladesh in association with the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh and chaired by Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, CPD Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Citizen's Platform for SDGs.

While making the keynote presentation, CPD's senior research fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan stated that allocation and distribution of resources in FY2022 budget, particularly in the area of social protection, have not been commensurate with demands of Covid times.

Budget FY2022 should have been informed by concerns and lessons arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, as the analysis reveals, without three particular social protection programs (viz. pension for retired government employees; savings certificate interest assistance; and agricultural subsidy) allocation for social protection in budget FY2022 increased by only Tk. 1,878 crore.

This indicates that allocation for social protection grew by a mere 2.9 per cent in a pandemic year, if the aforesaid three programs are excluded. There are concerns as regards the inclusion of these three programs within social protection budget.

Professor Ali Ashraf, MP, Former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Government Assurances and Rashed Khan Menon, MP, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Social Welfare were present as guests of honor at the dialogue.  
Professor Ali Ashraf, MP stressed on the need for expanding the tax net which would allow higher government expenditure in vital sectors like social protection.

Rashed Khan Menon, MP stated that the 'new poor' have been left out in the budget. He also highlighted that the budget formulation process needs to be more participatory through discussion with various stakeholders before preparing the budget.

CPD's Chairman, Professor Rehman Sobhan also spoke at the event. He re-emphasized on how social protection allocation figures would be very low if social protection was re-categorized as per the recommendations from the dialogue. Professor Sobhan also highlighted the importance of such dialogues to form a link between the grassroots and the policymakers.

Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya said that the social protection allocation seems higher because of inclusion of various elements like pension. Dr Bhattacharya also stated that allocations for social protection are not made as per vulnerability and these allocations oftentimes do not reach the right person.

Presenting a summary of the discussion session, Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow, CPD said that poverty is a multidimensional problem, thus, it should be dealt accordingly. He reiterated the need for data and a participatory budget formulation.

Dr Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, CPD, and Dr Dipankar Datta, Country Director, Oxfam in Bangladesh, shared their views at the dialogue.