ISLAMABAD: The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), the premier social safety net, is not only catering to the well-being of 5.4 million vulnerable women across Pakistan but has also earned $794m foreign exchange for the country through its performance.

This foreign exchange came from the development partners World Bank, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and Asian Development Bank from 2013-17 after the BISP met all the disbursement linked indicators (DLIs) related to enhanced coverage of unconditional cash transfer, conditional cash transfer, targeting communication, outreach, governance and management.

A BISP spokesperson said on Friday that the programme had shown an exceptional performance and over-achieved all the DLIs upon which its rating given by the World Bank and the DFID had significantly improved. The DFID had rated the BISP as A and World Bank upgraded its ranking from satisfactory to highly satisfactory due to effective service delivery and transparency.

The first DLI was related to the enhanced coverage of the BISP to ensure universal coverage of basic cash transfer for all eligible beneficiaries. Under this, the BISP met all the DLIs by increasing the number of beneficiaries from 3.5m in fiscal 2011-12 to 5.4m in 2015-16.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2017