ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s social protection schemes need to go beyond cash distribution to provision of productive assets among people via social economic bargains, and land distribution schemes need to be developed through stakeholder harmonisation with the assistance of development banks such as Zarai Taraqiati Bank (ZTBL).
These were the recommendations of the plenary Session: Multi-tiered Shock Responsive Social Protection (SP) in Pakistan organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), here on Monday.
The forum further recommended that in the wake of economic downfall due to the Covid-19, public-sector organisations need to develop long-term synergies and harmony with all relevant stakeholders including academia, CSO, and private sector organisations to ensure a better response through social protection schemes.
The speakers recommended that “Quantum of need” of the BISP beneficiaries needs to be reduced by dignifying them and considering them as proper customers. This could lead to long-term benefits and better funding recoveries than conventional techniques.
Further considering that public policy management is highly based on a stakeholder perspective analysis, it should be carefully analysed how they feel and react to the interventions. An assessment framework could be developed through constitutional networks, parliamentary proceedings, interprovincial dialogues, communication from top to bottom, and then Media Discos.
To ensure that rural poor have direct access to the procurement bags without involvement of the intermediaries, there is a need to develop technological capabilities and database for low-income potential beneficiaries, speakers recommended.
Rural poor protections schemes should involve capacity building and technological interventions to ensure a fair supply of water among farmers, both at upper and lower streams. Social protection in Pakistan would require collectively mobilising the voice of poor by building their institutional frameworks (agencies) and empowering their supporting lobbies.
There is a need to develop a national Social Protection council, which can have representation from all agencies, so as they can sit together and design programmes in a way that utilises resources more efficiently. For efficient social protection schemes, government needs to develop benchmarks of value to measure each intervention. This valuation should be built around inclusion, participation, and governance of local communities, speakers recommended.
The government has been working on human development centric approach and improved syntax solutions in data, said Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht, Provincial Minister of Punjab for Finance. “Our response to Covid-related issues has been improved over the last year,” the minister added.
The poor need charity but the poor also need an egalitarian system to alleviate poverty from Pakistan said Adeel Malik, Associate Professor Oxford University, UK, in the plenary session on Monday.
“The poor need more than charity. They need an egalitarian economic system…the system is anti-poor…and requires a new social bargain between the rich and the poor,” he added. We need to go beyond online cash transfer, said Dr Malik.
We need an education emergency in the country to bring change, said Malik, adding that there is a need for a very big education emergency in the country to practice nation building exercise. Pakistan has made immense progress in expanding its social protection regime, he added.
Khurram Dastgir Khan, former defence minister said that one of the state responsibilities is to deliver but the capacity is inadequate to design policy. He said that the country is stuck in this vicious cycle of very weak democracy followed by some hybrid mechanism and almost four decades out right dictatorship, he added.
He said that there is a need of new social bargain in Pakistan as most of the poor are the landless people. There is a need of land reforms as there is huge inequality in this area. We need to stop giving lands to bureaucrats civil and military and the political elite. Around 68,000 acres of land in Punjab is being allocated to these elite.
He further said that Pakistan tax system is hugely regressive. Big chunk of taxes is being collected from indirect taxes. The system is actually taking away the income and resources from the poor through indirect taxes and distributing to the rich.
Saeed Ahmad, additional secretary Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division said that the NCOC played a critical role during the Covid-19 pandemic. CEO Punjab Social Protection Authority, Beenish Fatima Sahi, while addressing the plenary appreciated the Bahemmat Buzurg Program of the Punjab government whose beneficiaries include women who did not have access to formal job market.
Qazi Azmat Isa opened the plenary, discussing the diverse needs of developing social protection initiatives in Pakistan. This was followed by DrSohail Anwar, Advisor Governance and Social Protection, sub National Governance Programme, Punjab setting the scene by commenting on the scale of global and national challenges, delving into provincial responses to those challenges, and outlining learnings for the future.
Nadeem Hussain, Founder Easy Paisa and CEO Planet N Group, Karachi discussed the accelerated digital footprint in Pakistan due to the Covid-19 and the importance of treating BISP beneficiaries with dignity.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021