THE government should create an institutional framework to enable provincial agencies to coordinate with the Benazir Income Support Programme under the aegis of the Council of Common Interests.
The recommendation was made by a panel of experts on social protection chaired by Asad Sayeed, director at the Collective of Social Science Research (CSSR), a Karachi-based research and consulting organisation, at the Pakistan Economic Forum (PEF-II) organised by the Pakistan Business Council last month in Karachi.
“For this institutional framework to work, there is a need to create a focal agency responsible for social protection at the level of the provinces. This agency should be responsible for framing the social protection policy and initiatives at the level of the provinces with input from and into the key line departments and agencies responsible for health, vocational training, nutrition and education, coordinating the relevant plans and programmes of these line departments and coordinating with BISP,” the panel proposes.
“The existing social welfare departments do not have the importance in the provincial setup to be able to effectively play this role. This agency should play the same role for social protection at the provincial level as the planning and development departments play in the context of development. The province-BISP interface can be strengthened if the recommended focal agency for social protection at the provincial level adopts the poverty score card for programmatic targeting,” it adds.
Launched in 2008 through an act of the parliament, BISP is the country’s first large-scale national social safety net initiative. The government has distributed more than Rs130 billion among more than five million extremely poor families to help them cope with the increasing price pressures.
BISP’s initial objective was to provide a safety net for underprivileged sections of society at a time when the economy was facing double-digit inflation with rising food and consumer prices.
However, recently it has introduced a number of programmes that aim to enable sustained transitions out of poverty by augmenting human capital accumulation (education and vocational training) and improving health outcomes of its eligible beneficiaries. These are co-responsibility cash transfer programmes that make the receipt of cash conditional upon actions of the household to acquire health and human capital and include the Waseela-e-Taleem (education), the Waseela-e-Sehet (health) and the Waseela-e-Rozgar (vocational training).
The panel says the federal-provincial issues related to social protection need to be understood in the context of the federal government’s heightened commitment to social protection in the form of BISP. “The two main issues that have acquired importance in this context are coordinating provincial supply-side response to support BISP Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) and the post-18th amendment legal status of social protection,” it argues.
“The success of these programmes depends not only on its ability to stimulate the demand side but, equally importantly, on the availability of good quality education, vocational training and healthcare providers. Since the supply of education, vocational training and healthcare is a provincial responsibility, the success of these programmes depends on the provinces’ ability to ensure adequate supply of high quality provision that can be accessed by BISP beneficiaries,” the panel says.
Currently the roll-out of these CCTs is happening either without any coordination between the relevant provincial agency (health and vocational training providers) or through bilateral contracting between BISP and the relevant provincial agency (education). These arrangements are weak as they do not require coordinated planning at the level of the provinces to supply adequate provision of accessible and quality provision.
“There is tremendous confusion in the aftermath of the 18th amendment about the role and responsibilities of provincial and federal governments with regard to social protection in Pakistan. Therefore we recommend that there is a need for parliament to provide a clear legal framework for social protection that clearly delineates as to what needs to be kept at the federal level and what can or should be devolved, keeping in view arguments for economies of scale and scope, need for cross-country coordination, and compatibility on one hand, and the rights and responsibilities of the provinces on the other. In addition, it should define the contours of co-responsibility, co-funding, co-monitoring and planning between BISP and the provinces,” contends the panel.
Apart from proposing creation of an institutional framework for province-BISP interface, the panel has proposed using social protection initiatives to combat growing incidence of underemployment and unemployment in agricultural sector, cut the incidence of rural-urban migration and accelerate industrial development in rural and semi-rural areas. In addition to existing incentives for this purpose, tax incentives tied to employment creation should be provided.
The panel says special emphasis should be paid to generate employment for women in the health and education sectors. These are sectors where women’s employment is high and where wages are relatively higher. A policy to create employment in both these sectors so that women can work close to their areas of residence will circumvent the mobility barrier that women face.
Additionally, it says, industry-specific vocational training institutes should be set up in rural areas to enhance existing skill base of workers and target vocational training ventures to high employment elasticity sectors.
Specific training institutes for women should be created in areas where their employment potential is high and an effective link between training and employment will be created when vocational training institutes and potential employers are linked up.
The panel also underscored the need for rationalisation of social protection instruments like Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution, World Wildlife Fund, WWPF and Employee’s Social Security Institutions.