This week’s reading have introduced me to ‘Bolsa Familia’ of Brazil and
‘Oportunidades’ of Mexico. Compelled by my instincts to compare such programs
with the one in Pakistan, I did some research on a particular large cash
programs known as ‘Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP)’. It was a program
launched in 2009 and so far has disbursed $ 2.67 billion[1] to
a base of 4.7 million people via monthly payments. It is the third largest
budgetary provision in the national budget of Pakistan.
The BISP is also funded / technically supported by some of the
international donor agencies including but not limited to the World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and US
Agency for International Development (USAID). Looking at the details of the
progress since its inception, this program was started off as an initiative to
provide budgetary support to households with some vague beneficiary selection
parameters. There is ample use of technology for the disbursement mechanism by
providing a smart card which comes with a debit card feature and a mobile bank
account.
There are two areas that I feel have been absolutely ignored. First one
is that the BISP has remained largely an unconditional
budgetary support program. It is astonishing to learn that the policy makers in
Pakistan did not account for a cohesive system delivering as one. In a country
which has 50% of its population of 200 million under the age of 21 and one
third of children not going to school, did not bring into fold the conditions
of getting children educated or having some other long term welfare aspect tied
to it. It is a sheer underutilization of the potential that this program has.
Although very recently the program has started a branch for enrolling children
in school as an additional monetary incentive and not made it a compulsion.
The second aspect of the program which I feel critical about is the
selection of the beneficiaries. The BISP website states that the new
methodology of the selective criteria is through a poverty score card whereas
some news articles from the past state that beneficiary selection has been
overshadowed by politics. Most of the initial base of beneficiaries were
selected from areas where the ruling coalition formed their government from.
Such ingredients in a welfare program kills the essence of any welfare in it.
It is welcoming to know that poverty scorecards are the basis of any newer
selection but it should also be a tool to verify all past beneficiaries.
I have never liked such income support programs except for emergency
cash-for-work initiatives but after knowing the successes of such programs in
South America, I am interested in knowing more for my own consumption and maybe
contribute to them in other areas of the world.
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