Public spending allocations on decline: Study

The allocations for public spending on education, health, social security and welfare, and housing as percentage of the total programme expenditure have been on the decline in recent years in Bangladesh, reports UNB.

The Unnayan Onneshan (UO), an independent multidisciplinary think-tank, in its March issue of Bangladesh Economic Update 2015 revealed this.

The UO cautions that if the declining trend in the allocations of public spending for social sectors continues, social developments, for which Bangladesh has been commended worldwide, will be unsustainable in the coming years posing serious challenges to the government's responsibility to provide public services to society as defined by the social contract -- the constitution -- between the state and the citizens.

Assessing the states of different countries' public spending on social sectors and the trends in their social developments, the think-tank finds that Bangladesh lags far behind other developing countries in accumulating public spending adequately to invest in social sectors and provide its citizens with necessary social services.

The research organisation shows that in 2013, the public spending stood at 32.21 per cent of GDP in the developing and emerging economies, whereas Bangladesh accumulated only 16.79 per cent of its GDP as public spending.

The volume of public spending is far lower in Bangladesh than in its two neighbouring countries -- India and Myanmar.