Rights activists at a dialogue on Wednesday called on the government to expand its social safety net programmes to reduce extreme poverty and vulnerability of the marginalised people.
WAVE Foundation in cooperation with the Asia Foundation organised the dialogue titled 鈥楽ocial safety net programmes: discrimination and rights鈥� at an auditorium in the capital, said a press release.
Speakers said that the impact of the ongoing social safety net programmes was less than expectations though a huge amount of public money had been expended over the decades.
There are many reasons behind the failure, they said, adding that the selection process, distribution method and corruption in the total system are the main causes of the failure over the years.
Dhaka University development studies associate professor Asif M Shahan said that successive governments of Bangladesh had long recognised the social safety net programmes as an important tool for reducing extreme poverty and vulnerability.
The National Social Security Strategy was adopted in 2015, he said, adding that even after nine years still a large number of people remained out of the network.
The initiatives failed to improve livelihood of targeted people as per the expectations, he said.
He suggested improving transparency and accountability of the programmes.
Additional secretary Zakia Afroz of the department of women affairs said that under the vulnerable women benefit programme, 1.44 million people were getting advantages, but they couldn鈥檛 make any need assessment and are yet to select right persons.
She said that they had aimed to increase the number of beneficiaries by 10 per cent annually but for fund crisis they failed to do so.
Wave Foundation executive director Mohsin Ali suggested developing a system and its implementation to ensure better success of the programmes.
Among others, university teachers and researchers spoke at the event.
