THE government has made little progress in the implementation of the National Social Security Strategy since its adoption in 2015. A report of the International Labour Organisation and the Research and Policy Integration for Development has recently made the observation and identified inadequate and weak institutional capacity as primarily responsible for the delayed implementation. In October, the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling made a similar observation. With the adoption of the strategy, the government acknowledged the contemporary challenges of poverty reduction, but it is yet to create a digital social registry under the national household database. Bangladesh covers around 35 per cent of its total population through more than 100 large and small schemes, but, according to SANEM, the average transfer amount to beneficiaries is Tk 595, which is inadequate. The socio-economic vulnerability of people in poverty, meanwhile, became evident during the protracted Covid outbreak. This suggests that the government has failed to demonstrate the political commitment with which the social security strategy was adopted to reduce poverty.

The adoption of the National Social Security Strategy was considered a watershed moment as it made a policy shift from need-based social protection schemes to life cycle-based schemes. The strategy, when implemented, could provide for a strong basis to extend proper social security to the poor and vulnerable people. This recognises the differences in risks at different stages of life cycle and provides support for various demographic groups. The scheme also has provisions for eliminating leaks, increasing the average value of transfers, lowering the risks that the poor and the vulnerable face, and reducing poverty and income inequality. Seven years after the strategy had been approved, the social protection system is still composed of small programmes with exclusion errors implying the inability of the system to reach the deserving beneficiaries. About 50–60 per cent of citizens who are vulnerable live without access to any social security schemes. There also exists a large gap between the budgetary allocation and needs of life cycle-based groups. The consolidation of the welfare programme for the urban poor, the elderly and the physically challenged remains off-track. The current spending on social safety net programmes is around 2.5–3 per cent of the gross domestic product. If pension for civil servants and other forms of social assistance are excluded, the amount being received by vulnerable people would be 1.5–1.7 per cent of the gross domestic product.

The stark gap between policy and implementation observed in the case at hand suggests that the government lacks the will to reduce income inequality. In order to prove its commitment to expanding the reach of the social protection schemes to include the most vulnerable people, it must immediately address the inadequate institutional capacity and allocate financial resources to bridge the gap between the budgetary allocation and people’s need for social protection.