Analysts call for effective safety nets

The government should form a commission in an effort to avoid the corrupt practices of the social safety net programmes, analysts said yesterday.
They also suggested establishing an agency and a comprehensive database to address the duplications and miss targeting of problems of the safety net programmes.
Around 23 ministries now run around 98 social safety net programmes, but these are implemented without any national integrated policy, said Mahfuz Kabir, senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.
“A multi-pronged approach is needed to address the issue,” he said.
He said a separate commission will provide an institutional arrangement to monitor and oversee the implementation of the safety net programmes.
Kabir spoke at a conference on the right to food organised by Campaign for Right to Food & Social Security, a non-governmental organisation, at the National Planning and Development Academy in the city.
Most of the safety net programmes have duplication and triplication problems due to an absence of proper coordination, said Monower Mostafa, research director of the Development Synergy Institute.
A comprehensive database is needed to select the most vulnerable group for social assistance, he said.
“The safety net programmes have a political economy and it is very nasty, which may create options to indulge in corruption,” Mostafa said.
Due to a centralised system, most people of the safety net programmes are not getting the benefit in due time, he said.
The right to food is a right for protecting all human beings from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition,
said Mizanur Rahman, chairman of the National Human Rights Com-mission (NHRC).
He said only food production will not ensure availability of food rather it involves proper distribution and the government has to play the vital role in it.
The NHRC chief urged the development organisations not to undertake any food-related programme funded by foreign donor agencies.
Donors may stop fund for any programmes at any time, which may create an adverse impact on the vulnerable people and so the nongovernmental organisations should not implement any food-related programmes from the donors' assistance, he said.