Reforms in present social safety net programmes underscored

Speakers at a technical session stressed Wednesday on the importance of reforms in the existing social safety-net programmes (SSNPs), saying that the government should consider what kind of social safety-net transfers is most effective for rural ultra poor.
There are five types of transfer modalities in social safety net - cash, food, a combination of cash and food, cash accompanied by nutrition BCC (behaviour change communication) and food accompanied by nutrition BCC.  
They also focused on measures to ensure proper targeting of the beneficiaries and efficiency of public expenditure on the social safety-net programmes (SSNPs) to attain food and nutrition security in the rural areas.
The observations came at a technical session on the sidelines of a day-long workshop organised by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based international agricultural research centre, at a city hotel to work out policy recommendations and methodologies for fighting against hunger and strengthening the country's food and nutrition security.
While showing a PowerPoint presentation on the topic of "creating an evidence base for safety net policy reform: implementing the transfer modality research", Country Representative of UN World Food Programme Dr. Christa Radar said Bangladesh has managed to maintain a sustainable economic growth more than 6.0 per cent per annum and poverty and food insecurity also continue to grow.
But 50 million people are poor, 30 million people are extreme poor and 60 million are suffering from food insecurity while 36 per cent children are underweight, she said.
 "Economic growth alone is not enough, we need pro-poor growth and more investment in social protection and nutrition interventions," she said.
Putting high emphasis on achieving better balance between different types of SSNPs in rural and urban areas, she said improved targeting and effectiveness to reduce leakage in the SSNPs should be given serious attention.
Dr. Iffath Sharif, Lead Economist of Social Protection Team of the World Bank, Dhaka, said majority of the SSNPs here are food-based.
"We can reduce 40 per cent wastage by targeting right persons and we need to ensure efficiency of public expenditure on SSNPs," she said.
Citing a study, Dr John Hoddinott of IFPRI-Washington said it revealed that 4000 ultra poor women participating in the pilot programme have received substantial benefits as evidence by statistically significant positive impacts on income, food expenditure, non-food expenditure, calorie acquisition, food poverty, diet quality and child stunting.

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