Social Protection Measures in Bangladesh: As Means to Improve Child Well-Being

In recent years around 12 per cent of the total budget outlay (2 per cent of GDP) was allocated through 66 different programmers under social sector and social empowerment. However, the major social protection programmers cover only 25 per cent of the eligible beneficiaries that total only 2 million households. What is the implication of various social protection programmers for the poor households and their children ? Analyzing the budget, targeting, eligibility, coverage, utilization, delivery mechanism and impact of the major social protection programmers, it was found that the major social protection programmers in Bangladesh do not contribute much in poverty alleviation. They only act as an instrument to keep poor people within the orbit of poverty with ups and downs. This book forwards suggestions towards increasing the national budget for social increasing the national budget for social protection, expanding the coverage of eligible beneficiaries, better targeting the marginalized population, provisioning multiple benefits to eligible households, and instituting pro-poor children social protection programmer for the consideration of relevant authorities.