The government on Friday signed a USD 500 million financial agreement with the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s (WB’s) concessional arm, to support major safety net programmes implemented by the disaster management and relief ministry. Around four million poorest households are supposed to benefit from the project.The Economic Relations Division (ERD) secretary, Md Abul Kalam Azad, and the acting head of the WB’s Bangladesh country office, Christine E Kimes, signed the agreement for the “Safety Net Systems for the Poorest” (SNSP) project, on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh and the WB, respectively, at the ERD.
According to the WB, the project will support improvements in the implementation of major safety net programmes to benefit the poorest population by strengthening their management and monitoring capacity. It will also enhance the governance and accountability of such programmes.
The project will provide technical assistance to the statistics and informatics division for the development of the Bangladesh Poverty Database, enabling the database to reduce the overall costs and errors associated with the set targets of the safety net programmes, and facilitate coordination among different ministries responsible for implementing such programmes.
Md Abul Kalam Azad said the government was committed to alleviating poverty and strengthening the coordination, targeting and coverage of social protection programmes. “This project is a critical milestone in this process,” he added.
“The SNSP would cover the poorest and the marginalised and would directly contribute to the WB’s goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and enhancing shared prosperity,” said Christine E Kimes.
-With The Independent input
