Delivery of Efficient Social Protection: Recommendations in View of Implementing Five Programmes in Bangladesh

Social protection and social safety net programmes (SSNPs) are critically important enablers to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the country level. This is particularly pertinent when the implementation of the SDGs in line with the spirit of ‘leave no one behind’ is considered. Delivering SSNPs at the grassroots level calls for the involvement of several actors, including the central authorities, local governments (LGs), and local administrations (LAs). At the aggregate level, it is the state’s responsibility to deliver the SDGs, but local authorities play a crucial role in the actual delivery on the ground. This role of local authorities is also explicitly mentioned in the SDG framework. However, in most cases, the gap between expectation and reality in delivering public service provision to the furthest behind population in Bangladesh has remained quite significant. Several studies have pointed out the shortcomings in this connection. These include, inter alia, inadequate allocation, limited coverage, mistargeting, leakages, coordination failure among the implementing agencies, high administrative costs and inefficiencies, and absence of any impact evaluation framework.