Diagnostic Study on OAA and HDDWWA (final) by Tareq Salahuddin

A Diagnostic Study

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance Programme and Allowance to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Programme

Strengthening Public Financial Management for Social Protection (SPFMSP) Project

March 2017

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Table of Contents Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................................................. i Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Findings of the Study ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 Implications ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................................. 4 Way Forward ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5 1.

Background and Context ................................................................................................................................................. 6

Objectives of the study .................................................................................................................................................... 8

Conceptual framework ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 3.1

3.2 4.

Value for Money ................................................................................................................................ 9

3.1.2

Public Financial Management..................................................................................................... 10

Applying VfM and PFM Approaches to the Two Schemes: Key Research Questions .................... 10

4.1

Beneficiary Numbers ......................................................................................................................................... 13

4.2

Beneficiary Selection and Identification .................................................................................................... 13 4.2.1

Programme Design: OAA .............................................................................................................. 13

4.2.2

Programme Design: HDDWW ...................................................................................................... 16

4.3

Transfer Values .................................................................................................................................................... 16

4.4

Payments ............................................................................................................................................................... 17 4.4.1

Programme Design ......................................................................................................................... 17

4.4.2

Payment Pilots ................................................................................................................................. 18

4.5

Program Features ............................................................................................................................................... 19

4.6

De-registration and Graduation .................................................................................................................... 19

4.7

Grievance Procedures ....................................................................................................................................... 19

Budget Analysis ................................................................................................................................................................ 21 Administrative Costs ......................................................................................................................................... 21 5.1.1

Understanding Cost Drivers ......................................................................................................... 21

5.1.2

Budget and Efficiency ................................................................................................................... 22

Diagnostic Analysis .......................................................................................................................................................... 25 6.1

3.1.1

About the Programmes .................................................................................................................................................. 13

5.1

Theoretical starting points: VfM and PFM ................................................................................................... 9

Targeting ............................................................................................................................................................... 25 6.1.1

Quantitative Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 25

6.1.2

Targeting Evidence from an External Evaluation ................................................................. 28

6.1.3

Selection Process: Qualitative Perspectives............................................................................ 29

6.2

Payments ............................................................................................................................................................... 30

6.3

De-registration/graduation ............................................................................................................................. 31

6.4

Grievance .............................................................................................................................................................. 32

6.5

Monitoring &Evaluation .................................................................................................................................. 32

6.6

Staffing .................................................................................................................................................................. 32

6.7

MIS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 33

Implications, Recommendations and Way Forward .............................................................................................. 35

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh 7.1

Findings from Study .......................................................................................................................................... 35 7.1.1 Coverage and Selection ......................................................................................................................... 35 7.1.2 Design and Features of Scheme .......................................................................................................... 35 7.1.3 Administrative Challenges .................................................................................................................... 36 7.1.4 Gaps in Policy and Budget Cycle ........................................................................................................ 36

7.2

7.3

7.4

Implications.......................................................................................................................................................... 38 7.2.1

Potential Reform Option .............................................................................................................. 38

7.2.2

Strategic Choices ............................................................................................................................ 38

Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................. 39 7.3.1

Scheme Design ................................................................................................................................ 39

7.3.2

Administrative and Budgetary .................................................................................................... 39

7.3.3

Capacity Development .................................................................................................................. 39

7.3.4

Information Technology and Management Information System.................................... 40

7.3.5

Value for Money Considerations ................................................................................................ 40

Way Forward ........................................................................................................................................................ 40 7.4.1 Reform Plan ............................................................................................................................................... 40 7.4.2 Snapshot of Issues and Solutions ...................................................................................................... 41 7.4.3 Dissemination Workshop ....................................................................................................................... 46

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 47 Annex 1 and Annex 1A Annex 1B Annex 2 Annex 3

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Executive Summary The objective of the study is to conduct an in-depth, independent and comprehensive operational and financial analysis of the OAA and HDDWW, with a view to identifying any issues related to efficiency and effectiveness.

Findings of the Study We can summarise the main findings from the study as: 

Coverage: The OAA scheme currently covers only 38% of the old age population of the country despite periodic expansion of coverage over the years. If taken into account the errors of inclusion by age, the program effectively covers only 26% of the actual old age population. The HDDWW covers only around 10% of eligible women.



Targeting and de-registration: There are significant targeting errors in both programmes related to basic eligibility criteria such as age and marital status. Analysis of household survey data shows that 31% of OAA beneficiaries are not eligible by age, while 22% of HDDWW beneficiaries are not eligible as they are not widows, divorced, or separated women and 36% are ineligible by either marital status and/or socio-economic criteria. Across both the programmes, around 20% are not poor (using the upper poverty line). Targeting errors in the HDDWW appear to be worse than in the OAA; the vast majority of OAA beneficiaries who are ineligible by age are still either extremely poor and/or a person with disability. On the other hand, HDDWW beneficiaries found to be ineligible by either age or socio economic criteria are much more likely to be younger, have more land, and relatively less poor. Both of these targeting errors – poverty- and demographically-related – seemed to be linked with some issues of corruption and patronage In both cases, some of the challenge emerges simply from the very difficult task of administering a highly rationed programme in the context of high levels of need. However, there are clearly also households who are well above the poverty level who are included as beneficiaries, and therefore the current process for selection needs to be improved both, in respect of applying t he selection criteria as well as raising awareness amongst potential beneficiaries about their rights and entitlements. Mis-targeting at the beginning as well as subsequent lack of de-registration/certification of eligibility in the event of death and change of marital status of widowhood/ divorce appear to be the main causes of errors in selecting beneficiaries.



Scheme Features: Some of the features of the scheme may require a revisit, such as overlapping of age Eligibility between the OAA and HDDWW, continuation of payment to the nominees for a quarter even after the death of the beneficiary.



Transfer values: The value of the transfer is small (only 23% of the per capita poverty line, and 4% of average beneficiary household consumption), and depreciates in real terms.



Payments: The existing process for receiving the benefits often entails travelling long distance by beneficiaries who may be old, disabled and frail. It often imposes significant financial costs as well as physical hardship to the beneficiaries. For improving the payment system, the a2i is currently piloting G2P mode which offer significant potential, but need the required resources to ensure that they overcome challenges identified and succeed in both expanding accessibility and effectiveness for beneficiaries without compromising the transparency and accuracy of payments.



Staffing and administration: DSS Departmental officers are over-stretched and severely limited in time and resources that they could devote to the programmes. There has not been any revision in the departmental organogram of DSS since 1984 despite establishment of many

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh new Upazilas since then and introduction of several new schemes. The current lack of MIS also does not promote efficiency and effectiveness that the system could deliver.

Implications Given this assessment, there are several inter-related observations that can be made about potential reform options for the programmes: 

Technical/technological solutions can help to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Integration with the National ID database, births and deaths register will help to validate eligibility, while verification tools such as vein verification or other biometric ID options would reduce ‘ghost beneficiaries’ through on-going verification. In future, use of the national poverty database could streamline the targeting process and reduce errors of inclusion. G2P pa yments mechanisms would make transfers easier for beneficiaries.



But these cannot be implemented in the absence of a robust MIS. Effective functioning of technological solutions requires a robust MIS, which in turn requires investments not only in hardware and software but also in human resources and in their capacity building for an on going maintenance of data records and reporting



Strategic decisions about the vision for future coverage and consolidation of programmes as per the NSSS have implications for the type of reforms required for targeting, re -certification, and grievance processes.

Recommendations 

Coverage: First, institute a progressive shift towards the universalisation of the OAA. This could be done in a phased manner, focusing on the poorest upazillas first. A pilot of 30 poorest upazillas could provide a useful opportunity to test the new approach and understand th e administrative and budgeting implications of the new approach. Second, in a complementary manner, shift the HDDWW towards a consolidated Vulnerable Women’s Benefit as envisaged in the NSSS, which covers women up to age 61 (older women would be covered by the universal OAA). The focus could then be more on IGA/Asset transfer/Skills type programmes such as ICVGD with short-term income support cash transfer



Transfer size: Progressively increase the transfer size and link to inflation. A system should be in place for periodic review to ensure ongoing effectiveness in poverty reduction



Targeting: The shift to universalisation would address most targeting issues for the OAA, although it would need to incorporate a robust recertification process (some kind o f annual ‘life certificate’, ideally combining automatic processes where possible, supplemented with manual verification for those too infirm to physically collect their payments using biometric identification themselves).



Payments: As per the recommendations of the SPFMSP study on the Payment Systems, payment to beneficiaries would be made directly from treasury (G2P). The recommendation also suggests that the beneficiaries would be provided with multiple options for receiving benefits (banking, mobile banking, mobile financial services, Post Office, etc). so that they may choose the one most convenient for them.



Administrative: The system requirements for efficient and effective implementation of the two programmes needs to be carefully considered. Current vacant posts should be filled, and consideration be given to increasing staffing both, at the headquarter as well as field level for proper oversight and monitoring of targeting, payments, recertification, and grievance processes. (Note that precise requirements for staffing will depend on the strategic choice over coverage, with universal approaches being less burdensome in terms of administrative requirements). Technological reforms to improve efficiency including digitisation of beneficiary

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh data, use of biometrics for payment and recertification etc. and integration with the National ID database. 

Build capacity within the Department and Ministries of Social Welfare and Finance Division to strengthen the evidence-base for decision-making, with an emphasis on considerations of efficiency and effectiveness and the potential trade-offs between them. Short-term capacity needs can ideally be filled with support of the SPFMSP, to build on the work alrea dy being undertaken, including: o

Follow-up training on PFM/VfM for OAA and HDDWW specifically, with a particular emphasis on the DSS’s budget cycle and the Department’s/Ministry’s engagement with Ministry of Finance (e.g. around budget submissions and reporting).

Development of templates for reporting on key value for money metrics, using existing data availability and staffing.

Development of an evaluation strategy to measure programme effectiveness



MIS: In order for the MIS to be fully integrated into the functioning of the program, it will be important to ensure that adequate resources exist for expanding the MIS access down to union level. To achieve this, there is need to build human and IT equipment capacity on MIS at Up azila level and provide MIS training especially on data entry to the union level staff. The ultimate goal of MIS capacity building at Upazila and union level is to reduce manual entry of data and introduce technologies that could allow electronic data handling at union level such as continuous update of beneficiaries’ data thus improving efficiency and reducing cost of program implementation.



VfM: Value for money considerations should be incorporated throughout decision -making processes, including: o

At the top-level decision making on budget allocation across Social Protection programmes;

MTBF, submissions which could more clearly articulate the case for programme spending in efficiency and effectiveness terms;

Periodic programme evaluation and performance reviews to assess the need for changes to policy design or implementation to improve effectiveness.

An extensive consultation has been made with the officials at various levels of the Ministry of Social Welfare (MOSW) and the Department of Social Services (DSS)along with other key stakeholders (including beneficiaries) at different phases of the diagnostic study. Findings and recommendations of the study were discussed at a dissemination workshop held at the DSS and participated by officials from MoSW, DSS, FD, UNDP, MJF and other stakeholders. The workshop was broadly in agreement with the findings and recommendations of the report and recommended for implementation of the suggestions made by the study. The proceedings of the workshop are placed as Annexure 1. to this report.

Way Forward In order to implement these general recommendations, design a reform plan that would address      

Steps towards Universalization Improving Targeting Payment Systems reforms Adequately Resourcing the Program Human Resource Development Monitoring and Reporting

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

1. Background and Context In 2015 Bangladesh approved the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS). The NSSS seeks to streamline and strengthen existing social protection programmes in order to achieve better value for money (VfM) and to broaden the scope of social protection from the existing narrow safety net concept to include employment policies and social insurance. This is instrumental in helping the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) address the emerging needs of a middle-income Bangladesh in 2021 and beyond. Strengthening Public Financial Management for Social Protection (SPFMSP) project has been assisting the Finance Division, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and six line ministries to establish policies, budgets, and plans for a more effective and efficient social protection system in order to contribute to the eradication of poverty in Bangladesh. Amongst other objectives, this includes providing analytical capabilities and tools to assess problems and solutions across a selected number of schemes, and to develop a strengthened evidence base for formulating costed reform plans for a more efficient and effective social protection system. The two diagnostic studies on the Old Age Allowance (OAA) and Husband Deserted and Destitute Women and Widow’s Allowance (HDDWW) are part of these e fforts. The OAA is one of the country’s oldest social protection programmes, having been set up in 1998 to combat elderly poverty, and now reaches 3.15 million beneficiaries as of 2016 -17. With a budgetary allocation of Taka 18.9 billion (USD 242.31 Million). The HDDWW was introduced at the same time to address the particular vulnerabilities of widows and women who have been abandoned by their husbands. It now covers over 1.15 million beneficiaries as of 2016-17 with a budgetary allocation of Taka 6.9 Billion (USD 88.46 Million). Both the OAA and the HDDWW respond to Clause 15d of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh that guarantees 'the right to social security that is to say, to public assistance in cases of undeserved wants arising f rom unemployment, illness or disablement, or suffered by widows or orphans or in old age or in other such cases’. Both programmes are implemented by the Department for Social Services (DSS) of the Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), and operate in similar ways, from beneficiary selection and identification processes, utilisation of Social Service Officers for implementation, to payment of quarterly cash transfers through state-owned banks. This provides for circumstances to examine jointly (while still investigating their individual facets and providing recommendations for each separately wherever appropriate). Looking forward, the NSSS provides the overall vision for the two programmes and the social protection sector as a whole. Of particular relevance for the OAA and HDDWW are the following key points: 



  

1The

The NSSS emphasizes a life cycle approach, with the focus on gradual consolidation of many different fragmented schemes into priority programmes to target different stages of the life cycle (from childhood to working age to old age) and ensuring wider coverage of key vulnerable groups. The vision for the elderly is to move towards a comprehensive system, comprising an Old Age Allowance (non-contributory) for the vulnerable above age 60, along with increasing contributory schemes for formal and informal workers. For vulnerable working-age women – including divorced and deserted currently targeted by the HDDWW, the idea is to consolidate existing efforts under a single Vulnerable Women’s Benefit 1. Cash transfers are to be indexed to inflation to address real depreciation in the value (and hence effectiveness), and Poverty targeted programmes are envisaged to shift towards a proxy means test approach being developed, facilitated by the development of a single registry. VWB is not specified in detail in terms of the type of programme (cash versus asset transfer/IGA).

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh These priorities outlined in the NSSS are consistent with Bangladesh’s commitments to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Efforts to reach the SDGs will be integrated into the Seventh Plan, the next 5-year development plan. This will be especially important from the perspective of population ageing, to ensure that the needs of older persons are met. Although Bangladesh will remain a ‘young’ country, the number and share of older people will increase, as illustrated in the figure-1 below. The number of people aged 65 and older is expected to double in twenty years, from just over 8 million in 2015 to over 17 million in 2035. During this time, the old age dependency ratio (the number of people age 65+ per 100 age 25 64) will increase from 11 (meaning there are 11 per 100 working-age) to 17. Beyond 2035 these will continue to increase rapidly, as improvements in mortality continue to increase life expectancy while reductions in fertility over the past twenty years are reflected in the reduction of the working-age population over time.

Figure 1: Old Age population and Dependency Ratio Projections Source: UNDESA (2015)

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

2. Objectives of the study As per the Terms of Reference (ToRs), the objective of the study is to conduct an in-depth, independent and comprehensive operational and financial analysis of both schemes, with a view to identifying any issues related to efficiency and effectiveness. Recommendations are expected to feed into subsequent development of costed reform plans. The Terms of reference are placed at Annexure 2. It is important to note that this diagnostic study is not an evaluation, and is limited in the time and resources for primary data collection. The emphasis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as per the objectives - is rather on identifying the key areas for potential reforms in the design and implementation of the programmes to ensure they deliver the greatest value for money for government.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

3. Conceptual framework 3.1 Theoretical starting points: VfM and PFM 2 3.1.1 Value for Money The over-arching guiding conceptual framework for this study combines two perspectives: VfM and public financial management (PFM). These are entirely compatible, but the literature on them tends to be separate. VfM focuses on the ‘3Es’ of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. Economy is achieved through the minimisation of the cost of inputs, while efficiency involves maximising the amount of output achieved for a given input. Effectiveness relates to the extent to which the intended outputs lead t o the desired outcomes. Finally, overall cost effectiveness relates to the extent to which the whole causal chain, from inputs to outputs to outcomes, results in the desired impacts (see Figure 2). An additional ‘E’ of equity cuts across the entire results chain. VfM indicators are then expressed simply as the cost to achieve the outputs, outcomes, and impacts as defined by the causal chain.

Figure 2: The Causal Chain and the '3E's One of the key strengths of the VfM perspective, in addition to the clarity and transparency in defining economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, is the explicit recognition of trade -offs between these three objectives that often arises. VfM is therefore not achieved simply through the idea that ‘cheapest is always best’: gains in economy may sacrifice efficiency or effectiveness (being ‘penny -wise but pound-foolish’), and – much more importantly – gains in economy can often lower overall effectiveness. This is most commonly seen in terms of reducing administrative costs below the point at which a service can be effectively delivered: without adequate staff or systems development, can the programme reach its targeted beneficiaries in a timely manner? For social protection programmes in general, and the two schemes being investigated here, VfM metrics are fairly straightforward to define:

2This

section draws from the SPFMSP Value for Money Assessment and Strategy (2015); see that document for further detail on these approaches.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh  



Economy can be measured in terms of the unit costs of key inputs: personnel, payments systems, MIS, etc. Efficiency can be measured through the balance between the size of the benefits (the cash transfers) and the size of administrative costs. Common metrics include the total cost -totransfer ratio (TCTR), the ratio of administrative costs to total spending, and the cost per beneficiary. Cost effectiveness measures are normally defined in terms of the cost per household lifted out of poverty or the cost to reduce the poverty gap by one unit (since reducing elderly and widow’s/abandoned women’s poverty are the explicit goals of the programmes).

Through these metrics, the ‘3Es’ + Equity will be at the centre of our investigations, with an emphasis on understanding the critical trade-offs between them.

3.1.2 Public Financial Management Perhaps more familiar to the Ministry of Finance is the language of PFM, where the goal is to achieve the three high-level budget outcomes: aggregate fiscal discipline; allocative efficiency; and operational efficiency. These essentially refer respectively to the size of the overall resource envelope; the distribution of spending shares across sectors (or ministries) and within these sectors to specific programmes; and, within this pattern of allocation to sectors or programmes, the level of outputs that are achieved for a given level of inputs. These three levels are inherently inter-linked, so that changes to one level may impact the others. For example, achieving aggregate fiscal discipline may limit the ability to allocate resources towards priority areas. Alternatively, poor operational efficiency due to poor expenditure controls may in turn limit aggregate fiscal discipline. In order for the three high-level budget outcomes to be achieved, the policy and budget cycle must be linked through an open and orderly PFM system with the following characteristics (PEFA 2005):    



Credibility of the budget: The budget is realistic and is implemented as intended; Comprehensiveness and transparency: The budget is comprehensive and fiscal and budget information is accessible to the public; Policy-based budgeting: The budget is prepared in line with government policy and priorities; Predictability and control in budget execution: The budget is implemented in an orderly and predictable manner and there are arrangements for the exercise of control and stewardship in the use of public funds; Accounting, recording and reporting: Adequate records and information are produced, maintained and disseminated to meet decision-making control, management and reporting purposes; and External scrutiny and audit: Arrangements for scrutiny of public finances and follow up by executive are operating.

3.2 Applying VfM and PFM Approaches to the Two Schemes: Key Research Questions Using these two approaches as the conceptual framework for our investigation, we then have a series of research questions/objectives, which include in broad terms: 

Quantifying measures of allocative and operational efficiency: o o o

To what extent are programmes currently in line with existing policy commitments and priorities? What are the current levels of operational efficiency (looking at TCTR; administrative costs; targeting efficiencies; delays in payments; etc.)? How effective are the programmes in reducing elderly and widow/deserted women’s poverty?

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh ď&#x201A;ˇ

Identifying where in the policy and budget cycle bottlenecks arise: o

ď&#x201A;ˇ

Are the issues identified early on in the policy dialogue (related more to evidence and skills in high-level resource envelope allocation), or later on, related to budget execution (where management and information systems play a role)?

Articulating why these bottlenecks arise: o

Which characteristics of the PFM system are not functioning and how these impact the underlying drivers of accountability?

In other words, we use the 3Es approach as the starting point, but also apply the PFM perspective to help understand where, why, and how issues arise throughout the policy and budget cycle, as illustrated in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3: PFM questions to address throughout the policy and budget cycle for OAA and HDDWW Further clarity and granularity on issues of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness will come from an in-depth investigation throughout the programme life-cycle, as illustrated in the figure 4. Both schemes follow the same general process, from the application process to selecting beneficiaries, making payments, and then, where appropriate, de-registering beneficiaries (for instance when they pass away or, in the case of the HDDWW, re-marry). Cutting across all these key stages should be a grievance and redress mechanism, to handle targeting errors, delays or missing payments, or problems with de-registration. Similarly, at all stages there should be routine monitoring that takes place. All these functions sit within the overall administrative system for implementation, as part of the DSS. In practice, currently the grievance and payments processes are currently somewhat separate from the rest of the administrative system, with the grievance system being piloted only in a limited number of areas by the ManusherJono Foundation (MJF), while the payments process is implemented by government-owned banks at Union level (see Figure 4).

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Figure 4: Administrative system throughout the beneficiary programme life cycle

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

4. About the Programmes 4.1 Beneficiary Numbers Both programmes have been increasing in size since their inception in 1998. The OAA now reaches 3.15 million people, and HDDWW reaches 1.15 million. In spite of this continual expansion, the OAA currently reaches just over a third (38%) of the population that is eligible in terms of age 3. The HDDWW provides even lower coverage of the potentially eligible population: just 10% of eligible women were covered in 2010 4.

Figure 5: Number of beneficiaries by programme and year

4.2 Beneficiary Selection and Identification 4.2.1 Programme Design: OAA The Programme Manual for the OAA sets out the criteria and selection process for the programme. The criteria are summarised in Table 1 below. Given that the programme is not universal, beneficiaries are to be prioritised on the basis of age and socio-economic status so that the poorest should be selected. OAA’s beneficiary poverty criteria are related to landholding (prioritising those with less than 0.5 acre), disability, availability of support from a spouse or children, and whether someone is ‘destitute’. Beneficiaries should not be in receipt of any other government assistance programmes.

3BBS

Census report from 2011 (summing all women 62+ and men 65+), with projections from 2011 based on a 3.98% annual growth rate for the elderly population as provided by the report. 4HIES

2010, based on consultancy team’s calculations (where earnings are a proxy for socio-economic eligibility)

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Table 1: Main Eligibility Criteria for OAA 5 Eligibility criteria and prioritisation Must be a Bangladeshi national

Ineligibility Leaves the areas of their usual residence for more than 6 months

Eldest people will be given priority

Recipient of any other benefit extended by GoB

Physically unable and severely disabled will be given priority

Unwilling to receive benefits

Destitute, refugees, and landless will be given priority

Recipient of any other benefit extended by GoB

Widow, divorcee, childless, alienated will be given priority Landless (having land of 0.5 acre6or less excluding home) will be given priority Three different types of selection processes have been recommended based on residence, i.e. (i) rural; (ii) pourashava; and (iii) metropolis (see Table 2, 3, and 4 respectively), although they all follow the same general pattern: Social Service Officers should undertake awareness activities at local levels and prepare a list of applicants 7; local committees review the lists and prioritise beneficiaries; and finalised lists (including those selected and those placed on a waiting list) are then sent for approval to the local member of parliament. The number of beneficiaries per location is determined by the budget allocation for the year. The local committee membership includes the Social Services Officer as well as local government and community leaders8. Note that the HDDWW does not currently operate in urban areas, so this process only applies in rural areas, whereas for the OAA it is in all three.

5Based

on the ‘Implementation Manual for Old Age Allowances (Revised), 2013’ published by Department of Social Welfare. 6Please

refer to page 4 of Implementation Manual for Old Age Allowances. The same criterion is adopted in HIES 2010 to identify ‘landless’ household (Report of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 2010, Table 2.3: ‘Rural Household by Size of Land’, page 11)”. 7According

to the implementation manual, meetings for beneficiary selection and identification should happen in an open and transparent manner in a community meeting in an open space. 8These

include the head of the local educational or religious institutes, retired government or military officers, etc.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Table 2: Selection Process of Rural Beneficiary 01 Social Worker prepare first list (1 )on the basis of application

02 Union Committee

03 Upazilla

Upazilla

Committee

Prepares another list (2) reviewing list 1

Prepares list (3) using list 1 and 2 and allocation amounts

also prepares waiting list (4) using list 1 and 2

M e m b e r s : 0 6

04 Disburseme nt commence on the approval of parliament member

Members: 14

Convene 4 times a year

Table 3: Selection Process for Urban (Pourashava) Beneficiary 01 Social Worker prepare first list (1 )on the basis of application

Pourashova

02 Pourashova

Committee

Prepares list (2) using list 1 and allocation amounts

also prepares waiting list (3)

03 Disbursement commence on the approval of parliament member

Members: 14 Convene 4 times a year

Table 4: Selection Process for Urban (Metropolis) Beneficiary 01 Social Worker prepare first list (1 )on the basis of application

Metropolis

02 Metropolis

Committee

Prepares list (2) using list 1 and allocation amounts

also prepares waiting list (3)

Members: 11 Convene 4 times a year

03 Disbursement commence on the approval of parliament member

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

4.2.2 Programme Design: HDDWW The criteria and process for the HDDWW are almost identical to the OAA. Although in theory beneficiaries of the HDDWW could transfer to the OAA once they reach the age of eligibility, in practice the high degree of rationing means that they might not be guaranteed to be selected for the OAA. The HDDWW therefore also prioritises based on age and poverty status, with exclusions for beneficiaries who are already receiving other programmes or pensions (See Table 5).

Table 5: Eligibility Criteria for HDDWW 9 Eligibility criteria and prioritisation Must be a Bangladeshi national and over 18 years of age

Ineligibility Those who are in public or private services

Physically unable and severely disabled will be given priority

Pension holder of the Government Service will not be eligible

Destitute, refugees, and landless will be given priority

Vulnerable Group Development (VGD)card holders will not be eligible

Widow, divorcee, childless, alienated will be given priority

Those who get regular grant or allowance from the government will not be eligible

Landless (having land of 0.5 acre or less excluding home) will be given priority The selection process is also identical to that of the OAA (See Tables 2 -4).

4.3 Transfer Values The size of the transfer has increased in nominal terms since both programmes began, although not consistently, meaning the real value of the transfer is often allowed to depreciate. In 2010, the transfer for both programmes was BDT 300 per month respectively. This was equivalent to 23% of the lower poverty line per capita but only 4% of total household consumption (because beneficiaries live in households of four people on average). This means that its effectiveness in poverty reduction will be reduced because the transfer value is fairly low relative to the needs of beneficiaries. Furthermore, since 2010, the real value has depreciated further because although t he nominal value increased to BDT 400 per month in 2014/15, this was not enough to offset inflation over the period, as shown in Figure 6.

Based on the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Implementation Manual for Allowances to the Husband Deserted Destitute women and the Widow (Revised), 2013â&#x20AC;&#x2122;. 9

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Figure 6: Nominal and real monthly transfer values, OAA and HDDWW

4.4 Payments 4.4.1 Programme Design As per the original programme design, payments for OAA and HDDWW are made into beneficiary accounts at state-owned banks at upazila and sometimes union level on a quarterly basis. Beneficiaries who have difficulty reaching the banks themselves (especially the disabled and elderly) may nominate someone to receive the transfer on their behalf. Beneficiaries are not charged a fee for the account(nor is the DSS/MoSW charged anything for the transfers, as will be discussed further in Chapter 5). The process is illustrated in Figures 7 and 8. Essentially, the MoSW authorises payment to the Sonali Bank main account, and then the bank transfers money to the local level bra nches for distribution (Figure 7). It is the local DSS offices who are responsible for providing the bank with the finalised list of beneficiaries. Passbooks are distributed by the bank to beneficiaries, and then on a quarterly basis beneficiaries are made aware of the payment dates on which they may go to the bank for collection of their payments. If beneficiaries are unable to collect their transfers for some reason, they will be available during the next quarterly payment window until the end of the fiscal year, when any uncollected amounts should be remitted to Treasury. With respect to reporting, local banks should send quarterly disbursement reports to the Upazilla SSOs, who should compile all the bank reports for the Upazilla and send to the Deputy Director, DSS for compilation for the DG, DSS, who then sends to MoSW, the Chief Accounts Officer, and the SSN committee in cabinet.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

•Budget Allocation by Ministry of Finance

•Endorsement by the Secretary, MoSW •Director General (DG) of DSS prepares and submits the bill to Chief Accounts Officer (CAO) to Issue Cheque •Cheque issued by CAO and sent to DG, DSS

•DG,DSS sends cheque to Sonali Bank Main Account

•Sonali Bank Clears Cheque from Bangladesh Bank •Sonali Bank Head Office Transfers Money to Line Banks as per Government Order of DG, DSS ( Head Office of Sonali, Janata, Agroni, Krishi and Rajshahi Krishi Unnon Bank ) •Respective Banks Transfer Money to their Field Level Local Branch

Figure 7: Flow of Funds for OAA and HDDWW

Local Bank

•Prepare disbursement report and send to their head office with copy to Upazilla SSO Upazilla SSO

•Compile all Banks disbursement report and send to DD at District Office Deputy Director, DSS

•Compile all Upazila Report and Send to DG, DSS Director General, DSS

•Compile all district reports and send to MoSW, SSN Cabinet Committee and CAO- Monthly, Qtr, Annual MoSW

•Submit Disbursement report to MoF

Figure 8: Reporting Process for Payments

4.4.2 Payment Pilots Recognising that the physical collection of the transfers is a large burden for many beneficiaries in terms of opportunity costs (time, transportation, etc.) and physical hardship, and considering electronic payments technology provides additional options for payments, the DSS has initiated a pilot programme in 14upazilas to test two different payment mechanisms. The first is an agent bank

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh model in 6 upazilas, where beneficiaries are provided with a savings account into which the transfer is paid. This model provides increased accessibility over the government-owned banks, as the agent banks have more branches at local levels. The second mechanism is a postal cash card through the post banking system, which, again, is accessible at more local levels as it can be used at post banks and many ATMs10. The card can be used both for deposits and withdrawals, and holders may hold balances on the card (i.e. use for savings). They may also collect cash from the local e -centres at union level using their card.

4.5 Program Features There are certain features of the program in terms of eligibility and payment that requires a revisit. Firstly, there is an issue with the overlapping of age eligibility between the scheme that becomes prominent after the age of 62 years for women. Women above 62 could apply for both or either of the schemes and there could be a confusion to that effect. It is therefore suggested that a rationalization could be made for eligibility by age for the programs that could be mutually exclusive. However, there could be a need for converting the HDDWWA beneficiaries suo moto to the OAA beneficiaries after crossing the age of 62, subject to fulfilling of other eligibility criteria. Similarly, there is an issue of payment to nominees after the death of the OAA beneficiaries that range up to more than a quarter. The OAA is an individual scheme and not connected to a family or household oriented where the family pensioner / spouse is paid the allowance after the death of the beneficiary. Hence the only nominee that may be required under the scheme could be the one who is nominated for ‘Life Time Arrears’ (LTA) of the beneficiary. Thus only the arrears accrued or due till the date of death of the beneficiary should be paid to the nominee and not for the next q uarter or till the end of the quarter. Any overpayments should be recovered as the case may be.

4.6 De-registration and Graduation When a beneficiary of either programme dies, the beneficiary should be de -registered and the beneficiary’s family should no longer receive the transfer. Similarly, if a woman in receipt of the HDDWW re-marries, she should no longer be registered on the programme. In both cases, if the beneficiary should experience an improvement in their socio-economic status, they should ‘graduate’ out of the programme in favour of applicants who demonstrate greater need (this is obviously more likely for widows than the elderly, since they might be younger and more able to earn an income, although it could also apply to OAA beneficiaries whose children begin to send greater amounts of support). Notification of the death or ‘graduation’ of beneficiaries should be made by the family or local government official to the Social Services Officer, who should then make the required changes to the payments register in order to stop payments to the ineligible beneficiary household and include a beneficiary from the waiting list in their place.

4.7 Grievance Procedures There is a fairly complicated complaints mechanism in the programme design of both schemes. For example, in the case of OAA, the union level OAA beneficiary selection committee is mandated to resolve selection-related grievances and the Upazila committee is mandated to resolve the appeals. However, an effective grievance mechanism is a pre-condition for a welfare-oriented social security system. Considering its importance, a pilot programme has been implemented by MJF to recommend an effective grievance mechanism. The ultimate goal is to establish a grievance mechanism at grassroots level so that the accountability of social protection programmes is ensured.

10Which

are expected to be installed, although they are not presently widely available in rural areas.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Two schemes have been selected for the pilot: (i) OAA, and (ii)VGD. The pilot programme has introduced certain social accountability tools such as social audit, community score card, community report card, development of citizen charter and public hearing. As a part of this pilot, a number of citizen forums have been formed at different administrative tiers i.e. UP, Upazila parishad, district level and national level. These forums comprises civil society organizations and members experienced in social protection issues at respective tiers. The forum members at local level have received training on social accountability tools to collate the beneficiaries’ feedback from grassroots level. The members of the grassroots-level civil society platforms, namely at UP and Upazila level,are expected to:   

Participate in the process of social protection, raising awareness about programmes and rights; Act as watchdog on the social protection planning and distribution process; and Collate voices/complaints of the poor and marginalised people.

This pilot grievance mechanism is designed so that the lowest tier’s forum are linked with the immediate upper tier for solving the ground level issues, but with the possibility for referral upwards in case of unsatisfactory resolution. This grievance mechanism is currently being piloted in 103 local government units compose d of 95 Union Parishads (UPs)and 8 municipalities. These local government unitswere selected from 12 Upazilas in 12 districts (see Table 6). MJF has been supported by 12 partners NGOs.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

5. Budget Analysis 5.1 Administrative Costs The budget data for both programmes is quite sparse. No administrative costs are allocated, as all the administrative functions are provided by either Social Services Officers (who are already employed by the DSS, and are therefore viewed as ‘free’ resources, along with running costs fo r field offices) or volunteer committee members at ward, union, and upazila level (who, again, are not paid). Similarly, local field office running costs are shared across the Department, with no specific allocation for these two programmes. The costs of bank transfers are also not recorded as the state-owned banks disbursing the funds do not officially charge the Ministry a fee for the service. As a result, the current budget presentation does not provide a wholly accurate picture of the full costs of the programme; clearly, the costs of the Social Services Officers is not zero, and there are also real costs of the transfers, even if these are hidden. It is therefore worthwhile to explore the actual cost drivers at work in practice.

5.1.1 Understanding Cost Drivers In any social protection programme – indeed in any service delivery programme – there are inevitably administrative costs involved. In the case of OAA and HDDWWA these are the costs required for the essential functions of beneficiary selection and identification, delivering the transfers, record-keeping and monitoring, evaluation, and budget preparation and integration with core MoSW functions related to the budget cycle and accountability. For the transfer costs, it is important to recognise an imputed value for the real cost to the government budget. In the absence of an explicit fee for delivering the transfers on a quarterly basis, Government would ultimately end up paying for these costs through lower profits of the state -owned banks11. In addition, when beneficiaries do not collect their transfers (whether because they are too ill to collect payment or they die), any uncollected amount at the end of the year should be returned to treasury. Because Treasury has disbursed money to the banks in advance, any returned amount would then bear some kind of opportunity cost to government for the period it was sitting idle. Unfortunately, we do not have any concrete data on the amount of uncollected/returned transfers at the end of the fiscal year. To begin estimating both of these costs, therefore, we make an assumption here that the costs of transfers through the state-owned banks is 2% of the transfer value. This is very likely to be a conservative estimate; in other programmes internationally the costs are often higher, ranging from 2%-10% depending on the transfer mechanism (electronic payment vs cash vs bank) and the size of the transfer 12. For all other administrative costs, we estimated a percentage of the costs of the Social Services Officers at district and upazila levels, as well as their office functioning costs and equipment/vehicles. For the share of those costs, we used information from our stakeholder consultation, where officers reported spending around 70% of their time on DSS activities (with the remaining 30% spent on 11The

research study on payments (Priyadarshi et al 2017) under the SPFMSP project notes that even without offering full-service accounts to beneficiaries and limiting payments to specific payment days, the disruption in terms of bank staff time and to other customers is significant. For example, the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment programme in Uganda (which is a social pension for older people), transfer costs through mobile money electronic pay points is 4-6% of the transfer value. In Rwanda, the Vision 2020 Umurenge programme, which includes a cash transfer and public works component, has transfer costs that are 1-2% of the cash transfer value and around 10% of the value of public works. However, this is because the size of the cash transfer is relatively generous whereas the public works wages are quite low, so the transfer cost is a higher percentage of the transfer value. Finally, in a cash-based system in Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net, the costs are around 10%. (Source: Value for Money Assessments and Business Cases, DFID) 12

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh outreach activities for other DSS schemes as well as programmes in other ministries). Of this 70% share, we estimate they spend 15% of their DSS time on the OAA and HDDWW, or just over 2 person days per month. The estimated values for these costs are shown in Table 8. (It is important to note that other costs cannot be captured here, but should be recorded in fut ure, including the charges to be paid to the National ID database for verifying IDs (a one -off nominal fee for each number checked) and the costs of data entry for digitising beneficiary records (if, for example, this is outsourced to a2i e-centre entrepreneurs).

5.1.2 Budget and Efficiency As the OAA and HDDWW have expanded and increased the transfer values in recent years, we see that nominal spending on transfers for the two programmes has nearly doubled between the 2013-14 and current 2016-17 budget, from 13.4 billion BDT to 25.8billionBDT. Actual budget out-turns are almost identical to the budgeted amounts for the programme, with transfer values fully executed at 100% 13 and small variation coming from staffing and functioning costs. This is in contrast to t he Ministry’s budget overall, which is executed on average at 96% of the original budget (with half the variation coming from budget revisions and the remainder from under-execution). The OAA accounts for almost one third of the Ministry’s total budget ( excluding imputed transfer costs), ranging from 62-67% over the period analysed in Table 7. The programme appears to be running currently in a very efficient manner, with administrative costs – including imputed transfer costs – at only around 4% of the total. This leads to a TCTR of 1.04, which is very low for transfer programmes, even amongst those that are implemented through governments. As Table 6 below shows, Mexico’s Progresa had achieved a TCTR of 1.05, but that is a very generous transfer relative to the poverty line compared to the OAA and HDDWW (thereby making it ‘easier’ to achieve a low TCTR). For more comparable programmes, both Uganda’s SAGE social pension and Rwanda’s VUP Direct Support component have TCTRs of 1.12.

Table 6: TCTR of Global Social Protection Programmes By 4th year after roll-out

TCTR

Progresa, Mexico

1.05

Rwanda VUP Direct Support

1.12

Uganda SAGE

1.12

13Which

suggests that the reporting of actual expenditure may be somewhat problematic, in that it is highly unlikely that transfers really are executed exactly against the budget, down to the very last taka. What these budget data may reflect is that once transfers are disbursed, there are counted as fully expended, and any uncollected transfers are repaid to Treasury by the banks under a different accounting head.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfa re, Government of Bangladesh

Table 7: Estimated Budget Breakdown of OAA and HDDWW In Thousands of Taka OAA/HDDWW

Budget

2013-14 Revised

Actual

Budget

2014-15 Revised

Actual

Budget

2015-16 Revised

Actual

2016-17 Budget

Admin, o/w:

511,219

529,674

536,870

650,236

648,565

631,849

692,396

768,967

741,574

935,076

Equipment

14,427

14,343

12,470

16,475

14,564

13,757

7,382

7,837

5,999

9,934

Functioning

20,438

20,578

19,464

23,032

25,048

24,497

25,447

28,186

27,213

32,340

Staffing

207,470

225,869

236,052

252,218

250,441

235,083

264,700

338,076

313,494

376,802

Payment (imputed @ 2%)

268,884

358,512

394,868

394,867

516,000

Transfers, o/w

13,444,200

17,925,600

19,743,400

19,743,360

25,800,000

OAA

9,801,000

13,068,000

14,400,000

18,900,000

HDDWW

3,643,200

4,857,600

5,343,400

5,343,360

6,900,000

Total

13,955,419

13,973,874

13,981,070

18,575,836

18,574,165

18,557,449

20,435,796

20,512,367

20,484,934

26,735,076

Admin

Transfer

96%

97%

96%

97%

1.04

As % of total

Total Ratio

Cost/Transfer

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfa re, Government of Bangladesh Total MoSW Budget Development

1,915,500

1,313,139

1,114,544

1,907,300

997,000

866,115

2,001,400

1,768,500

1,304,803

1,675,800

Non-Development

20,218,528

20,324,349

20,032,672

27,138,748

26,929,906

26,385,196

30,573,707

31,385,934

30,994,963

41,056,700

Total

22,134,028

21,637,488

21,147,216

29,046,048

27,926,906

27,251,311

32,575,107

33,154,434

32,299,766

42,732,500

98%

96%

94%

102%

99%

63%

65%

67%

61%

62%

as % budget

original

OAA/HDDWW As % of MoSW budget

62%

63%

62%

61%

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

6. Diagnostic Analysis 6.1 Targeting 6.1.1 Quantitative Analysis From a diagnostic perspective, the key issue with respect to beneficiary selection relates to errors of inclusion and exclusion. The 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) provides a useful look into the effectiveness of targeting. It asked about which social assistance programmes each member of the household received 14, as well as household consumption and asset holding for poverty estimates. Figure 9 below shows the benefit incidence analysis for both programmes, or the percentage of beneficiaries from each consumption decile in 2010. For both programmes, the majority of beneficiaries were from the poorest 10% of households, with roughly 75% of OAA and 67% of HDDWW beneficiaries coming from the poorest two deciles (which roughly corresponds to the lower poverty line). Using the upper poverty line, 81% of OAA and 78% of HDDWW beneficiaries were considered poor, suggesting that the existing poverty targeting approach is working to some extent.

Figure 9: Benefit Incidence Analysis (source, authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calculations HIES 2010) However, this also means that around 20% of beneficiaries were not poor, and in fact 10% of OAA and 16% of HDDWW beneficiaries were in the top half of the consumption distribut ion. Another aspect of targeting errors relates to the age criteria for the OAA, and on this basis there were far more errors: fully 31% of beneficiaries were not old enough to qualify (age 62 for women, 65 for

14So

while it was somewhat limited in asking about only one programme per individual, if different individuals were benefiting from different programmes it would allow it to capture multiple benefits. The 2015/16 HIES improved on this by asking about each programme for every individual, which might allow the newer survey to pick up more instances of multiple benefits per household. Unfortunately, however, the 2015/16 data will not be available until later in the year, after this diagnostic study has been completed.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh men). Of the 31%, around half of them were near to the age limit, being between 60-64 years of age, but the remainder were 59 or under, with 9% being less than 50 years of age (see Table 8). These errors could either be the result of initially eligible beneficiaries dying and the household continu ing to collect the OAA or through collusion somewhere in the beneficiary selection process (or a combination of the two, where officials were aware of the recipient having passed away, but allowed the household to stay on the register).

Table 8: OAA Inclusion Error by Age Bracket (2010 data) Age Group

Share of ineligible by age

40-49

50-59

45%

60-64

47%

Total

100%

For the HDDWW, similarly, we can look at eligibility in terms of widowhood/divorce/separation 15 as well as the income requirement (less than 12,000 BDT per year). In terms of widowhood alone, according to the 2010 HIES data, 22% of beneficiary households did not contain a widow, and 36% of beneficiaries were ineligible either on the widowhood or income criteria (or both). Again, this could be due to targeting that was initially accurate but the household had a change of circumstances (death or remarriage of the beneficiary, the latter of which might also trigger an increase in income) or because of the inclusion of ineligible households from the beginning. We can look at this mis-targeting in more detail to get a better sense of who was included incorrectly. Figure 10 below shows an interesting picture of the benefit incidence analysis of eligibl e vs ineligible beneficiaries for both programmes in 2010. For the OAA, the ineligible were very similar in terms of consumption decile to the eligible, and the majority of ineligible were also very poor. For the HDDWW by contrast, ineligible households tended to be notably better off. This is partly because eligibility for the HDDWW includes income criteria.

15In

the survey, we can identify women who are not currently married, whether widowed, divorced, or separated. The latter category should identify women who have been abandoned by their husbands, although this is not a specific category in the survey.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Figure 10: Benefit Incidence by Eligibility/ Ineligibility (2010) For the OAA, 25% of beneficiaries had more than 0.5 acres of land, so on that basis would not have been prioritised, however looking at other criteria it seems that this may have been balanced by other factors. For example, in Table 9 below, we see that amongst those who were ineligible by age, 12% had a severely disabled adult in the house, and of those who do not have a severely disabled adult, 72% were in the poorest quintile. This suggests that while the mis-targeting by age is problematic, in general for the OAA it does seem to be often â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;benevolentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mis-targeting to include otherwise needy households.

Table 9: Benefit Incidence of OAA Beneficiaries who are Ineligible by Age, by Disability Status Severely Disabled Adult (%) Consumption quintile

Yes

Poorest

Richest

Total (column)

100

Total (row)

For the HDDWW, by contrast, further investigation supports the idea that the mis -targeting is more egregious. Looking at the maximum age in the household, we see that ineligible HDDWW beneficiaries are much younger than eligible ones, with half of ineligible younger than 50 years of age compared to half of eligible beneficiaries being older than 60 (see Figure 11).

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Figure 11: Maximum Age in HDDWW Beneficiary Household, By Eligibility Status Also, if we look at landholding by eligibility status and whether a household received the HDDWW or not, amongst beneficiaries, those who are eligible had smaller amounts of land than those who were ineligible: 33 decimals on average versus 44 respectively, with median sizes much smaller at 5 versus 10 decimals.

Table 10: Land size (in decimal) by HDWW beneficiary and eligibility status Mean land size *

Median land size *

Ineligible

Eligible

Ineligible

Eligible

Non-beneficiary

Beneficiary

* Land size excludes land used for the homestead

6.1.2 Targeting Evidence from an External Evaluation A 2011 survey of a range of social protection programmes, including the OAA and HDDWW, found somewhat smaller errors of inclusion with respect to age and widowhood, with only 17% of OAA beneficiaries ineligible by age and none of the HDDWW beneficiaries ineligible because they were not widows (Rahman and Choudhry 2011, 56-57). However, when they included land size as a proxy for poverty, they found that inclusion errors were around 20% for both programmes. However, the survey used a much smaller sample than the 2011 HIES, so those findings should be taken with a note of caution. The survey also asked about the targeting process, and found that only 7 -9% of beneficiaries of the OAA and HDDWW responded that the process set out in the programme manual was fo llowed. Three quarters of respondents said that local government was the main channel for inclusion within the programme, with 6% of OAA beneficiaries saying they enlisted the support of a political party to gain entry, and around 10% stating they needed the support of kin members.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh Only around 3% of beneficiaries of either programme stated that bribes were required, however the authors note that respondents were very reluctant to discuss any sensitive topics for fear of being removed from the programme. In the more anonymous setting of the focus group discussion, 20% 60% of respondents identified ‘entry fees’ as being common practice, particularly in the poorer districts where there was seen to be more ‘competition’ for limited places. Respondents placed the fees in the range of 1,000-3,000 BDT.

6.1.3 Selection Process: Qualitative Perspectives In addition to the quantitative analysis, discussions with DSS officers revealed some issues with the process which are outlined below.

The selection process does not entirely follow the steps/procedures laid out in the manual.



There is usually no announcement through public address system (reasons: lack of bu dget and more importantly number of allocation per scheme is significantly lower than the actual beneficiaries – a public address would likely result in a flood number of applications which subsequently may create management problem, discontent etc.).Instead, once the circular is issued by the upazila Social Service Officers to union parishads, the members of the unions have been asked to identify the beneficiaries from their respective wards. The pool of potential applicants is therefore not as wide as it should be, and therefore errors of exclusion would be expected. Each union parishad member forwards their nominated beneficiaries for discussion and the list is then reviewed in the Union Committee. The Union Committee prepares the list on the basis of beneficiary names forwarded by the Union Parishad members. They prepare an active list and as well as a waiting list. The list is then forwarded to the upazila committee. However, it is found that Upazila Committee usually approves the Union Committee active and waiting lists without major changes, suggesting that perhaps the process could be streamlined.



ii) 

iii) 



There is little awareness of entitlements or communication with beneficiaries. Most of the beneficiaries do not know why they have been paid. They think this is some kind of relief by the government which may be stripped off any time by the government officials/politicians. They are often reluctant (and or afraid) to discuss their socio-economic situation. They should be made aware that these are their constitutional right which can not be stripped away.

There are varying perspectives on the extent of targeting errors. Chairman and members of union committee argued that their selection is generally accurate leading to small selection error of the deserving beneficiaries. According to them the errors could be in the range of 4%-5%. Similarly, DSS officials acknowledge problems in selection process which according to them is around 5%-7%. The reasons given are mainly lack of database, and political pressure. They think system improvement would help reduce the selection problem, although they stressed that the large degree of rationing also made it difficult to select amongst many very poor applicants. However, discussions with both OAA and HDDWW beneficiaries as well as non-beneficiaries tend to suggests that selection errors are higher than the claims of the union committee. On the basis of discussion/information/appearances of the OAA/HDDWW beneficiaries as well as nonbeneficiaries, it could be assessed that the extent of selection errors could be in the range of 25 30%.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

iv) 



There is generally support for some reforms to the targeting process amongst officials. Union committee members and local DSS officials are in favour of reducing age eligibility of OAA from 62 and 65 to 60 years for both males and females due to high mortality rate in their unions16. They also argue that similar pension age should be followed for government pension and social pension. They however favour universalising OAA on the grounds of increased loss of employment opportunity during old age as well as less familial support being available. There appears to be, however, some hesitancy around switching to the poverty database as per government indicative plans for the social protection sector more widely. Chairman and members of union committee are against such a move on the grounds that the people may hide information during the poverty census leading to increase in selection errors. They opined that such a database need to have a verification mechanism, and that the union committee are best suited for this purpose as they have better knowledge of the local situation. This suggests that, again, technical solutions would need to be accompanied by administrative processes, while at the same time ensuring that local-level interventions are not used to perpetuate elite capture of the programmes.

6.2 Payments The existing payments system is quite rigid in terms of accessibility for OAA and HDDWW beneficiaries, and does not live up to the expectations as per the programmes’ designs. 

In practice, beneficiaries are not set up with a true ‘account’ in the bank, which they could access at their discretion and use for deposits and withdrawals. Instead, the banks disburse cash to beneficiaries at specific payment times (usually over a few days around every quarterly payment period). Beneficiaries are only able to physically collect the cash at that time, and are not able to access the cash at another time.



This could well be justified by the banks in the sense that they are not charging a fee for the transfer, and establishing individual accounts for the very poor for small transfers would be inordinately expensive for them to implement. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that what is currently being delivered by the payments system is not what is envisaged by the programmes designs. The current practise needs to be accurately compared to other options that are more direct and accessible for beneficiaries.



The opportunity costs of collecting the transfers is not insignificant for beneficiaries, in terms of transport and time, particularly for the very elderly and disabled. DSS officials estimate

that the average private cost of receiving transfer range between BDT 50 to BDT 100.They can nominate someone to collect on their behalf, but many beneficiaries may lack the family resources to be able to do this. The limitations of the current payment process are already well understood by the DSS and MoSW, and the current payment pilots, as outlined in Section 4, are a significant step t owards implementing a solution that offers better VfM. The pilots have, however, raised some important issues that will need to be addressed as part of whatever final solution is agreed upon. Discussions with DSS officers, local officials, and beneficiaries revealed that, in terms of the postal cash card option there were several concerns with payment on the ground. Firstly, with respect to payment through a2i e-centres, the ground level experience is not quite as straightforward as might have been expected. The idea of the e-centre is to help create self-employment opportunities for young people with IT knowledge. The e-centre is equipped with hardware and software. The e-centre is outsourced to a computer literate person who is known as an entrepreneur. Currently, however, the 16This

is also more in line with government staff retirement age of 59.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh entrepreneur does not receive any payment for his/her cash card services. This is not a sustainable approach according to workers and officials. Moreover, the incidence of vein verification failure is high leading to non-payment as well as the need for second or third revisits. It is also found the even when all conditions (i.e. including vein verification) are met, beneficiaries have been asked to visit on a later date to collect their money. Similarly, with payment through Post Offices, there were instances reported where beneficiaries were asked to come again on multiple occasions to receive their transfer, as there was an incomplete register and no MIS database of valid beneficiaries to verify that the beneficiary should recei ve payment / have already received payment. In addition, while the postal workers can provide a useful service to ill or disabled beneficiaries who are unable to collect payment in person, by delivering cash when mail is delivered to villages, these workers do not receive any payment for this extra service and, anecdotally, are sometimes asking for a small fee for doing so. This also raises questions about sustainability and fairness to beneficiaries if the full costs of transferring funds is not carefull y considered. Such incidents point to a potential ‘fiduciary’ risk if this process is not tightly controlled, recorded, and monitored. Currently the record-keeping is inadequate in the pilots, with no reporting back to the Upazila DSS to know who collected their transfers. These anomalies need urgent attention and correction if the postal cash card system is to be extended to other schemes and regions. There was in general, somewhat surprising level of reticence amongst beneficiaries, union committee members, and DSS officials with respect to the ‘G2P’ (Government-to-Person) options being piloted, such as mobile banking and payment booths. Some pointed to the potential benefits of the current system with respect to targeting, in that a better-off, non-deserving beneficiary may find it undignified to queue with other relatively less well-off persons especially as they might be embarrassed to be recognised by bank officials – leading to voluntary withdrawal from the list. Additionally, some of the union committee members pointed out that since some the beneficiaries do not have their own mobile and/or number, they need to use another person’s account to get payment. In such cases, the payment may land to other person’s (i.e. not the selected beneficiaries) account increasing the risk of leakage/misuse of public funds. Moreover, both bank and postal cash card systems have a built-in oversight in terms of vein verification or personal information (thumb print, signature, and photo). It appears that such built-in verification mechanisms may not be available in many of the G2P payment options, which may lead to increase leakage/misuse of public money. It is therefore important to recognise that while technological solutions to facilitate G2P payments have some potential for providing a better service for beneficiaries, they are unlikely to be ‘silver bullets’ on their own, and would need to be accompanied by robust administrative procedures to identify fraud and protect beneficiaries from corruption.

6.3 De-registration/graduation At present, de-registration of beneficiaries is not as robust or systematic as it should be. Beneficiary households have little incentive to notify the Social Services Officers about any changes in their situation, and officers are extremely limited in their time and ability to verify individual household circumstances. Similarly, local government leaders should in theory know when a beneficiary has died or remarried, but in practice, particularly depending on the area, might not have know ledge of every case, or they might actively withhold information from the programme, either out of compassion for the beneficiary’s household or for patronage opportunities (in particular bribes). The Access to Information (A2i), a unit within the Prime Minister’s Office are providing digital services to the common man and supports the government departments and agencies in its digitisation process. It has found through its payment pilot areas that the scale of the issue is significant, finding that around 25% of those on the OAA beneficiary list had some sort of issue that needed to be followed up to resolve. There were very high levels of churn: out of 8,000 on its list, only 7,000 were

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh able to be registered with their biometric data. Some of these missing 1,000 beneficiaries had moved or died, and therefore needed to be de-registered, while some were incapacitated so were unable to physically register at the bank. There is no formal report available yet from the A2i digitisation process as it is still underway, but it would appear that ‘ghost beneficiaries’ are a sizable problem (likely comprising 5 -10% of the total17). A firm estimate will be needed once the digitisation process is complete. While the digitisation of records and the use of biometric identification will of course aid enormously in rooting out existing ghost beneficiaries and ensuring that ineligible beneficiaries by age are not included in further rounds of the OAA, it is important to note that technical solutions will not be able to address issues related to ‘graduation’ where HDDWW beneficiaries remarry or beneficiaries of either programme become better off. In context of other countries such as India, the beneficiaries are supposed to provide a written undertaking to the effect of widowhood continuity and / or remarriage certificate that would disqualify them from the scheme. Nor is the technological solution enough on its own; as the A2i experience shows, digitisation can help to identify potential ghost beneficiaries but administrative manpower is needed to follow up on individual cases to determine whether the beneficiary is merely incapacitated or has actually moved or died.

6.4 Grievance The MJF pilot programme has been in operation for about 9 to 10 months, but their experiences have not been formally documented while they have built up logs in the system. Hence it was not possible to ascertain the efficacy of the design as well as the usefulness of the pilot at this time. However, one of the major concerns of the grievance pilot is the lack of integration into the programme design at the Government level. For instance, DSS officials are not aware of the pilot programme, and it seems that integration of this type pilot within the social protection system by passing DSS or government machineries would be very difficult. Other concerns are related to the issues of sustainability and scaling up; MJF staff were apprehensive about the fate of the committees and forums once their support is withdrawn.

6.5 Monitoring &Evaluation There is very little monitoring of the programmes that takes place, and no evaluation by the Department itself. This is largely due to resource constraints at implementation levels, and perhaps the capacity/incentives for integrating evidence into the budget process. A cabinet note has been submitted to request that a Social Safety Nets unit be established within the DSS that would be responsible for all transfer programmes of the Department including the OAA and HDDWW. The wing would be tasked specifically with looking after all aspects of implementation, including improved monitoring of programmes.

6.6 Staffing Local-level implementation is the responsibility of Social Services Officers at upazila and union levels. The Department of Social Services has approved staff strength of 11,723 but a total of 1,873 posts are vacant as on March 2015 18, implying a vacancy rate of the approved posts of around 15%. Moreover, it is important to note that the staff position of DSS was approved in 1984, before the OAA and HDDWW were introduced. Furthermore, the lack of automation, setting up of modern system, and adequate training has also been hampering the performance of the DSS in effective 17Representing 18

1.3 to 2.6 billion taka of transfers.

source: http://www.msw.gov.bd/site/page/7f639993-bfc8-4d80-a563-3c7304420fe5/Human-Resource

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh implementation. From our field visit, we found that staff vacancies in the Nagorpur Upazilla in Tangail as on November 2016 were more than 50 percent (Table 11). The number of beneficiaries under various social protection services has been reported to be more than 11,000 (i.e. 11,347), implying an effective beneficiary/staff ratio of over 7,500 19. One can easily concluded that even with full staff strength, it would be very difficult to satisfactorily address the needs of the beneficiaries; with more than 50 percent vacancy the needs of beneficiaries are almost impossible to meet.

Table 11: Staff Information of Upazila Social Service Office, Nagorpur, Tangail Sl No: 1

Designation

Approved post

Filled

Vacant

Upazilla Social Services Officer

Field Supervisor

Accountant

Office Assistance cum computer operator

Union social workers

Trade Instructor

Office Assistance

Security Guard

Total

Source: Upazilla Social Services Office, Nagorour DSS staff are also required to perform other services in addition to their main task. They are also asked to perform other tasks such as examination invigilation; and credit services etc on a regular basis. This is in stark contrast with other similar programmes elsewhere, that have dedicated staff at local government level.

6.7 MIS As part of the SPFMSP, the MoSW is being supported in its development of a management information system (MIS). This will allow the current MoSW MIS database to communicate with the MoF Social Protection Budget Management Unit (SPBMU) in terms of OAA beneficiary and payment data. Figure 12 below illustrates how the MIS is expected to work. The MoSW will continue to ‘own’ its own beneficiary database, and this will be linked with the SBPMU’s central database (which will be a central repository for schemes across different ministries). This central database will be linked with the National ID and eventually birth and death registration system, to validate eligibility. It will also be linked with the government integrated budget and accounting system (IBAS++) and electronic funds transfer (EFT), whether through banks or various G2P mechanisms as being currently developed.

19Assuming

they use around 30% of their time for the two programmes.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Figure 12: Proposed MIS Design for Pilot

There is also an effort currently underway to digitise current beneficiary data for the OAA, being supported by a2i, which will allow this MIS design to become operational. This will provide some important improvements in terms of managing OAA beneficiary records and reporting, and the linkages with the external ID and births/deaths register databases will allow for reductions in targeting errors related to age. However, it is important to note that at present the design would extend only to Upazila level, and the MIS is being piloted only with the OAA, not HDDWW.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

7. Implications, Recommendations and Way Forward 7.1 Findings from Study We can summarise the main findings from the study as:

7.1.1 Coverage and Selection ď&#x201A;ˇ

ď&#x201A;ˇ

Targeting and de-registration: There are significant targeting errors in both programmes related to basic eligibility criteria such as age and marital status. Analysis of household survey data shows that 31% of OAA beneficiaries are not eligible by age, while 22% of HDDWW beneficiaries are not eligible as they are not widows, divorced, or separated women and 36% are ineligible by either marital status and/or socio-economic criteria. Across both the programmes, around 20% are not poor (using the upper poverty line). Targeting errors in the HDDWW appear to be worse than in the OAA; the vast majority of OAA beneficiaries who are ineligible by age are still either extremely poor and/or a person with disability. On the other hand, HDDWW beneficiaries found to be ineligible by either age or socio economic criteria are much more likely to be younger, have more land, and relatively less poor. Both of these targeting errors, poverty and demographically-related seemed to be linked with some issues of corruption and patronage In both cases, some of the challenge emerges simply from the very difficult task of administering a highly rationed programme in the context of high levels of need. However, there are clearly also households who are well above the poverty level who are included as beneficiaries, and therefore the current process for selection needs to be improved both, in respect of applying the selection criteria as well as raising awareness amongst potential beneficiaries about their rights and entitlements. Mis-targeting at the beginning as well as subsequent lack of de-registration/certification of eligibility in the event of death and change of marital status of widowhood/ divorce appear to be the main causes of errors in selecting beneficiaries.

7.1.2 Design and Features of Scheme 1.

Transfer values: The value of the transfer is small (only 23% of the per capita poverty line, and 4% of average beneficiary household consumption), and depreciates in real terms.

Eligibility Overlapping: There is an overlapping in the eligibility between the two schemes at the age above 62. Thus, there could be a possibility of confusion amongst the widows and / or destitute women above the threshold age whether to apply for OAA or HDDWWA. Tec hnically speaking, since the database of the two schemes are not in synch, there could also be a possibility of a beneficiary taking benefits from both the schemes amounting to double dipping

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh to ensure that they overcome challenges identified and succeed in both expanding accessibility and effectiveness for beneficiaries without compromising the transparency and accuracy of payments.

7.1.3 Administrative Challenges Staffing and Administration: DSS Departmental officers are over-stretched and severely limited in time and resources that they could devote to the programmes. There has not been any revision in the departmental organogram of DSS since 1984 despite establishment of many new Upazilas since then and introduction of several new schemes. The dissemination workshop revealed that at the Union level, there was only one approved post that would cater to three unions whereas the DSS feels that every Union should be provided with a dedicated staff. Similarly, due to vacant posts, many Upazila Social Service Officers are being given the additional responsibility of managing two or more Upazilas which naturally hampers their abili ty to perform in a dedicated manner. MIS: The current lack of MIS also does not promote efficiency and effectiveness that the system could deliver. Put in value for money terms, it would appear that the extreme efficiency of the programmes in terms of relative administrative costs has come at the expense of effectiveness. It will be important going forward to shift the policy discussion to directly address efficiency and effectiveness measures.

7.1.4 Gaps in Policy and Budget Cycle Putting this in the context of PFM, we can see that there are gaps throughout the policy and budget cycle: 

 

Most importantly, issues around efficiency are largely un-addressed, which is perhaps not surprising when there is a perception that the programmes are implemented using ‘free’ human resources. Recognition and inclusion of the true scale of existing administrative costs (including implicit/hidden costs of transfers and the human resource costs already being utilised) in the budget will be an essential first step towards an evidence-based dialogue around potential costs and benefits of various reform options. There is a lack of transparency and comprehensiveness of budget information on the true administrative costs of the programme. Evidence to support decision-making around programme scale and scope (largely determined in the Social Protection Committee) is generally lacking. More could be made of the potential in the MTBF process to articulate the evidence and rationale for programme reforms (including scaling up in size and/or value), including providing evidence for ministers, budget committees and parliamentarians.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfa re, Government of Bangladesh

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

7.2 Implications 7.2.1 Potential Reform Option Given this assessment, there are several inter-related observations that can be made about potential reform options for the programmes: 

Technical/technological solutions can help to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Integration with the National ID database, births and deaths register will help to validate eligibility, while verification tools such as vein verification or other biometric ID options would reduce ‘ghost beneficiaries’ through on-going verification. In future, use of the national poverty database could streamline the targeting process and reduce errors of inclusion. G2P payments mechanisms would make transfers easier for beneficiaries.



7.2.2 Strategic Choices Strategic decisions about the vision for future coverage and consolidation of programmes as per the NSSS have implications for the type of reforms required for targeting, re -certification, and grievance processes.

Figure 13: Strategic choices determine solutions for OAA and HDDWW

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

7.3 Recommendations 7.3.1 Scheme Design 

Coverage: First, institute a progressive shift towards the universalisation of the OAA. This could be done in a phased manner, focusing on the poorest upazillas first. A pilot of 30 poorest upazillas could provide a useful opportunity to test the new approach and understand the administrative and budgeting implications of the new approach. Second, in a complementary manner, shift the HDDWW towards a consolidated Vulnerable Women’s Benefit as envisaged in the NSSS, which covers women up to age 61 (older women would be covered by the universal OAA). The focus could then be more on IGA/Asset transfer/Skills type programmes such as ICVGD with short-term income support cash transfer



Transfer size: Progressively increase the transfer size and link to inflation. A system should be in place for periodic review to ensure ongoing effectiveness in poverty reduction



Eligibility Overlapping: There is an overlapping in the eligibility between the two schemes at the age above 62. It is therefore suggested that the age group for HDDWWA should be redefined between 18 and 62 years. Beneficiaries of HDDWWA after crossing the age mark or 62, should automatically be transferred to the OAA beneficiary.



Targeting: The shift to universalisation would address most targeting issues for the OAA, although it would need to incorporate a robust recertification process (some kind of annual ‘life certificate’, ideally combining automatic processes where possible, supplement ed with manual verification for those too infirm to physically collect their payments using biometric identification themselves).



7.3.2 Administrative and Budgetary 

Administrative: The system requirements for efficient and effective implementation of the two programmes needs to be carefully considered. Current vacant posts should be filled, and consideration be given to increasing staffing both, at the headquarter as well as field level for proper oversight and monitoring of targeting, payments, recertification, and grievance processes. (Note that precise requirements for staffing will depend on the strategic choice ov er coverage, with universal approaches being less burdensome in terms of administrative requirements).



Monitoring Cell at DSS: Administrative management skills will have to be improved including setting up of a Monitoring Unit within the DSS to implement the programmes.



Rationalize Budgetary Allocations: There is a need to rationalize budgetary allocations in terms of certain objects. For example, while the government allocated full budget for salaries, the insufficient allocation of budget on 'Travel' and / or 'Office Expenses', 'POL' etc. prevent the staff from traveling to the field and effectively implement and monitor the schemes. Thus with an addition of an extra Taka on travel, POL, office expenses etc., a much magnified impact could be observed in terms of value for money.

7.3.3 Capacity Development 

Build Capacity within the Department and Ministries of Social Welfare and Finance Division to strengthen the evidence-base for decision-making, with an emphasis on considerations of

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh efficiency and effectiveness and the potential trade-offs between them. Short-term capacity needs can ideally be filled with support of the SPFMSP, to build on the work already being undertaken, including: o

o o

Follow-up Training on PFM/VfM for OAA and HDDWW specifically, with a particular emphasis on the DSS’s budget cycle and the Department’s/Ministry’s engagement with Ministry of Finance (e.g. around budget submissions and reporting). Development of templates for reporting on key value for money metr ics, using existing data availability and staffing. Development of an evaluation strategy to measure programme effectiveness

7.3.4 Information Technology and Management Information System Technological reforms to improve efficiency including digitisation of beneficiary data, use of biometrics for payment and recertification etc. and integration with the National ID database. MIS: In order for the MIS to be fully integrated into the functioning of the program, it will be important to ensure that adequate resources exist for expanding the MIS access down to union level. To achieve this, there is need to build human and IT equipment capacity on MIS at Upazila level and provide MIS training especially on data entry to the union level staff. The ultimate goal of MIS capacity building at Upazila and union level is to reduce manual entry of data and introduce technologies that could allow electronic data handling at union level such as continuous update of beneficiaries data thus improving efficiency and reducing cost of program implementation.

7.3.5 Value for Money Considerations VfM: Value for money considerations should be incorporated throughout decision -making processes, including:   

At the top-level decision making on budget allocation across Social Protection programmes; MTBF, submissions which could more clearly articulate the case for programme spending in efficiency and effectiveness terms; Periodic programme evaluation and performance reviews to assess the need for changes to policy design or implementation to improve effectiveness.

7.4 Way Forward 7.4.1 Reform Plan In order to implement these general recommendations, design a reform plan that would address      

Steps towards Universalization Improving Targeting Payment Systems reforms Adequately Resourcing the Program Human Resource Development Monitoring and Reporting

Over the medium- to long-term, specific recommendations will depend on the results and recommendations of the costed reform plan, as there is a range of different options that should be evaluated and decisions to be made at a strategic level about the direction the Government of Bangladesh would like to pursue in order to put the vision of the NSSS into practice. The costed reform plan should comprise an assessment of both technical elements of design and implementation as well as those related to process.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

7.4.2 Snapshot of Issues and Solutions Bearing these inter-related decisions in mind, the table 12 below provides an overview of the full range of technical issues raised here, the possible solutions, their implications, and general pros and cons. These can be assessed in more detail in the costed reform plan. No matter which strategic option is ultimately chosen with respect to coverage, the analysis in this diagnostic study has emphasised the importance of an adequate administrative system in order to deliver an effective programme. The design and implementation options outlined in the table 12 below will all have implications for the level of staffing, training and development of staff, equipment (IT, vehicles) and non-salary recurrent expenditure (such as fuel, allowances, etc) to allow implementing staff to engage in the targeting and recertification processes, on -going monitoring, and reporting. All of these will need to be carefully considered an d costed in the development of reform plan options. With respect to PFM process, then, these costed reform options need to be part of a shift towards more policy-based budgeting, centred on high-quality evidence, and accountability for results in delivering value for money. The costed reform plans should therefore incorporate the costs of not just the technical reforms, but also the requirements for capacity building and institutional strengthening at Ministry/Department levelto ensure programmatic reforms are sustainable and part of a wider strengthening of public finance management to provide value for money.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Table 10: Matrix of issues, potential solutions, and implications for costed reforms to consider Topic Coverage

Issue

Potential solutions

Coverage remains highly rationed

OAA: Progressively expand access but continue some kind of poverty targeting

Implications/ Considerations Rationing could be based on current system or other poverty targeting approach (proxy means test)

Pros Budget is contained Benefit incidence likely to remain heavily tilted to poorest

Cons Political economy realities; programme will remain highly rationed because it is not popular with groups most likely to pay tax More expensive to implement (targeting, recertification, etc)

Progressively expand access and shift to categorical/universal targeting (based on age, geographic poverty, etc)

Rationing could be based on age (targeting the X oldest per location) and/or geography (expanding coverage in poorest areas first)

Budget could be contained depending on desired speed of roll-out Could easily be expanded to universal coverage eventually Political economy: politically popular across the board More easily implemented (lower costs)

HDDWW: Keep programme targeting and coverage as is

Targeting and implementation of current design would need to be improved

Improvements in effectiveness from better targeting of existing programme (reducing ineligible and leakage to non-poor)

Short/medium term budget implications: once expanded, entitlements would be very difficult to roll back politically( could not re-ration in the face of budget shortfall in the same way as possible under povertytargeted). Political economy pressures to expand to universal access would be considerable, with long-term budget implications.

Entitlement would remain somewhat confused (with HDDWW serving to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mop upâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; many older women not covered by OAA).

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh Consolidate with (expanded) OAA and Vulnerable Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Benefit

Targeting/ deregistration

Ineligible beneficiaries by age or widowhood status are being paid. (This is an issue irrespective of targeting/coverage approach)

Older women integrated into OAA, working-age women catered to by Vulnerable Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Benefit/VGD/IGA-type programme with more limited time period and graduation expectations

Entitlements more appropriate to needs (IGA vs cash transfer) and therefore potentially greater efficiency and effectiveness

Requires MIS and linkage to NID database to be functional. A2i pilots suggest that considerable effort/human resources will be needed at the outset to verify all existing beneficiaries and eliminate ghost entries

Would significantly limit (and perhaps eliminate) beneficiaries who are ineligible by age

Logistical challenges (if databases are not accurately and easily integrated)

Implement an annual process of life certification (can be a combination of biometric verification and in-person validation for those who cannot access biometrics).

Will require human resources (SWOs) to provide certification; MIS to record certification and flag need for renewal; potential investment in biometrics

Would significantly limit (if not fully eliminate) ghost beneficiaries, reducing costs and improving effectiveness

May add undue burden vulnerable/remote beneficiaries

HDDWW: (assuming programme continues as currently targeted): Implement an annual recertification requirement, to prove widowhood/divorce/abandonment

Some integration with birth/death registry would facilitate certification for widows, but divorced and particularly abandoned women might not have any

Would significantly limit mis-targeting due to marital status

Might limit participation by genuinely needy/eligible women who do not have documentation of their status

OAA: Link to National ID at beneficiary registration

AND

Would potentially impose conditionality on single depending on the design of component, would need to implications for effectiveness

a work women the IGA consider

More straightforward entitlement with respect to old age

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh documentation to prove their status. Would have significant implications for human resources to verify inperson the lack of male breadwinner in the household Mis-targeting to the better off (assuming continued focus on poverty targeting)

OAA AND HDDWW: Improve current process through (i) changes to targeting criteria (reducing landholdings for example) and more training and scrutiny/verification of criteria and (ii) introducing recertification process based on poverty/vulnerability

Would require human resources for more careful scrutiny than currently the SWOs are able to provide

Would retain buy-in by local leaders and MPs by keeping their role in the process

Would keep scope for unofficial payments/bribes to local leaders;

The process would be less personalised, and be more ‘black box’ in nature. There would inevitably be winners and losers (amongst equally ‘deserving’ poor), as well as some on-going inevitable targeting errors remaining

Costs might be fairly low given economies of scale with existing efforts

Might be seen as equally unfair, since many deserving would still be excluded

Human resource costs to effectively policy could be large

OR Shift to proxy means test approach, piggy-backing on existing plans for national registry

De-personalisation of targeting would reduce scope for political interference/bribes/etc Might be seen as more fair, taking control away from political leaders

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh Transfer value

The transfer value is low, and depreciates

Increase value and index to inflation

Would likely have implications for speed of progressive scalingup/coverage

Improved effectiveness through greater poverty reduction impact

Budget implications from higher cost per beneficiary

Payments

The current payments process is onerous to beneficiaries

Implement some form of G2P approach

Solutions need to be accessible for vulnerable/remote/disabled

More convenient beneficiaries

for

Vulnerable/remote beneficiaries may be excluded if not carefully designed

Costs may be comparable to current (true) costs

Some concerns that automatic payments might not provide same disincentive as currently for better-off to self-exclude from the programme due to stigma (i.e. would make it easier/more attractive for ineligible households to stay or get on the programme)

Would heighten need for recertification, since it might be easier for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ghostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; beneficiaries to continue to collect payments automatically.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

7.4.3 Dissemination Workshop An extensive consultation has been made with the officials at various levels of the Ministry of Social Welfare (MOSW) and the Department of Social Services (DSS)along with other key stakeholders (including beneficiaries) at different phases of the diagnostic study. Findings and recommendations of the study were discussed at a dissemination workshop held at the DSS and participated by officials from MoSW, DSS, FD, UNDP, MJF and other stakeholders. The workshop was broadly in agreement with the findings and recommendations of the report and recommended for implementation of the suggestions made by the study. The proceedings of the workshop are placed as Annexure 1. to this report.

A Diagnostic Study on Old Age Allowance and Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widows Allowance of Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh

Bibliography Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2015) Bangladesh Population and Housing Census 2011, National Report Volume 1, Analytical Report. (2010) Household Income and Expenditure Survey, microdata Government of Bangladesh (date) National Social Protection Strategy. Khondker et al (2013) Old Age Social Protection Options for Bangladesh: Analysis of the 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, Volume 1. HelpAge International. Priyadarshee, Anurag, Sejadul Karim and Rezauddin Chowdhury (2017) Research Study on Social Protection Cash Payments in Bangladesh, Strengthening Public Financial Management for Social Protection Programme. Rahman, Hossain Zillur and Liaquat Ali Choudhury (2012) Social Safety Nets in Bangladesh, Volume 2: Ground Realitites and Policy Challenges. Dhaka, Bangladesh: PPRC and UNDP. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, custom data acquired via website.

Annex 1 and Annex 1A

Annex 1B

31‐03‐2017

Outline • Objective of the diagnostic study

DIAGNOSTIC STUDY ON OLD AGE ALLOWANCE (OAA) AND HUSBAND DESERTED DESTITUTE WOMEN AND WIDOW ALLOWANCE (HDDWW)

• Key findings • Strategic implications and considerations • Recommendations

Presentation of key findings and recommendations

Major Objective • Operational and Financial Analysis • Design, Product Features and Implementation (Book V/s Field) • Greater efficiencies in terms of targeting, enrolment and allocating resources, improving compliance of guidelines and procedures.

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

• Suggest Recommendations • Improving upon the efficiency, economy and cost effectiveness of its operations • Providing stability and sustainability and Promoting value for money • Focus on Strengthening • Supply Side (PFM), Institutional Design and Delivery • Demand Side (Beneficiaries) Empowerment and Convenience on Receiving Benefits

31‐03‐2017

Methodology • Methodology Adopted • Primary Sources • Discussions with MoSW, DSS, FD, DFID, UNDP, Banks, Post Offices, MJF, Visit to 4 Upazilas, 4 Unions in 2 Districts • Meetings with VGD Committees at 2 Districts, 4 Upazila and 4 Unions • Beneficiaries and Non Beneficiaries

KEY FINDINGS

• Secondary Sources • Review of Reports, Past Studies, Guidelines, Implementation

Manual etc. • Budgetary Documents and MTBF • HIES analysis

Beneficiary Life Cycle

Coverage and Transfer Size

Grievance Process

• Coverage is low: • OAA allocation would cover 38% of eligible beneficiaries by age • HDDWW covers only 10% of potentially eligible beneficiaries • Effective coverage is lower because of inclusion errors

Grievance

Application

Selection

Monitoring

Payment

Deg g registering

• Eligibility is overlapping: • Widowed/deserted women over age 62 are potentially eligible for both programmes • Both OAA and HDDWW highly rationed, so lack of clarity over which eligibility should prevail • Transfer size is small and the value depreciates

31‐03‐2017

Targeting: HDDWW

Targeting: OAA • 31% of OAA beneficiaries are ineligible by age: • This means that in actual practice only 26% of eligible by age receive OAA benefits • Half of these mis-targeted by age are near age threshold (60-64)

• Targeting errors for HDDWW are higher than that of OAA: • 36% of beneficiaries not eligible on grounds of widowhood and/or socioeconomic categories (income, etc) • 22% of beneficiaries are not widows / husband deserted

• BUT, of the ineligible, still tends to pick up the very

poorest and / or disabled 35% of beneficiaries are non-poor

20% of beneficiaries are non-poor

Targeting: identifying bottlenecks • Targeting issues come at two stages: • Initial beneficiary selection • Recertification (or lack thereof) to identify death of beneficiary/remarriage/graduation of beneficiary • Currently no hard evidence on how much each aspect

contributes to overall errors, but clearly both need to be addressed

Payments • Payments through banks impose burden on beneficiaries

(long distance, travel cost) • Beneficiaries have no option to select any particular mode

of receiving benefits (Mobile banking, postal, mobile money) • Beneficiaries are not allowed to use their bank accounts for purpose other than withdrawing the benefits. • Pilots offer significant promise, there are challenges identified by a2i, such as: • There is insufficient DSS field staff dedicated to these two schemes • Need to ensure new options do not exclude disabled/vulnerable in

terms of accessibility

31‐03‐2017

Programme Management

Public Financial Management

• Inadequate Staff for Management • Staffing levels for DSS Social Services Officers are the same as in 1984, before these two programmes were introduced • Scale-up in beneficiaries in last decade has severely strained resources • Many posts are vacant, further adding to strain • SSOs have many responsibilities aside from OAA and HDDWW • Program is currently managed with little application of IT

• Budgets do not explicitly recognise programme

system including MIS

• No digitization of beneficiary data and hence lack of validations

of data • Little use of technology in transferring benefits • Inadequate monitoring • Inadequate operational budgets

administrative costs • There are, of course, administrative costs incurred by the

programmes • Staff time (salary) • Field office functioning • Transfer costs: currently hidden • Banks incur costs to deliver but GoB not charged • Government faces opportunity cost from this payment strategy (cost of

borrowing)

• Travel allowance or vehicle (bicycle, motorcycle, etc) and fuel • Office expenses

Value for Money: background

Value for Money • Administration of OAA & HDDWW are cost efficient, with

very low total cost / transfer ratios • BUT … • …This comes at a cost in terms of effectiveness • Mis-targeting • Inability to address ‘ghost’ beneficiaries or graduation • Inability to monitor payments

Cheapest not always best: • Efficiency/effectiveness trade-offs • Reaching the poorest may be more expensive than reaching non-poor

31‐03‐2017

PFM: findings POLICY-BASED BUDGETING

POLICY-BASED BUDGETING

1. Problem identification

There is almost no evaluation data to serve as basis for understanding impact on poverty and subsequent adjustments to programme design and targeting.

POLICY CYCLE

Need to better integrate NSSS priorities around consolidation of schemes, especially related to widows and destitute women

7. Evaluation

2. Policy formulation 3. Planning and budget preparation

INTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Although the MTBF process does encourage/require some discussion of previous year out-turns and next year budget planning to ensure efficiency, the quality of the value for money discussion is largely lacking.

6. Monitoring & reporting CONTROL

There is very little in-year reporting to monitor transfer uptake

BUDGET CYCLE

POLICY-BASED BUDGETING

Increases in the budget ceiling (for both beneficiary numbers and transfer values) are in line with stated policy commitments to expand the programmes, but appear to be made on a fairly ad-hoc basis.

PFM OUT-TURNS

CROSS-CUTTING: COMPREHENSIVENESS Transparency about administrative cost drivers is lacking.

STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS

4. Budget approval POLICY-BASED BUDGETING There is no evidence or discussion about the scale and cost of administrative resources required to effectively implement the programme.

5. Implementation

Solutions depend on Strategic Vision OAA

Solutions depend on Strategic Vision HDDWW

Coverage

Universal / Category

Targeting Progressive expansion by age Could be combined with g g p p geographic scale-up

OR Proxy Means Test (using national single registry) Poverty Targeted

OR Keep existing approach but refine guidelines, monitor implementation more closely

Recertification Life certification process: combination of biometric/automatic and manual

Life certification process: combination of biometric/automatic and manual

PLUS Poverty re-certification periodically

Consolidate with universal OAA and Vulnerable Women’s Benefit

Keep programme definitions as is

Targeting

Recertification

All over age 62 are part of OAA Working-age women eligible for VWB (IGA-type, perhaps consolidated with VGD))

Life certification process: combination of biometric/automatic and manual

Proxy Means Test (using national single registry) with proof of widohood/abandonment

Life certification process: combination of biometric/automatic and manual

OR Keep existing approach but refine guidelines, monitor implementation more closely

PLUS Poverty re-certification periodically

31‐03‐2017

All approaches require more investment in systems • Technical reforms (National ID, national registry, biometrics at

payment, etc) will provide some solutions, but are not the only answer • Cannot be fully functional without proper staffing levels and related

inputs • Universal approaches less HR-intensive, but nevertheless still

require robust system for implementation • Clear efficiency/effectiveness trade-offs to be managed: • What is the level of admin staff needed to ensure targeting/selection is

RECOMMENDATIONS

without leakage, and that eligible are not discouraged from uptake? • What staffing resources are required for re-certification? • What staffing is needed for routine monitoring? • What equipment and non-salary costs are required (e.g. IT, fuel,

vehicles, travel allowance, etc)?

Recommendations

• Coverage: • Progressive shift towards universalisation of OAA

• Use costed reform exercise to assess costs and benefits

• Scale-up slowly, focus first on poorest upazillas

• HDDWW would then only cover eligible women below 62 • Focus could be more on IGA/Asset transfer/Skills type programmes such as ICVGD with short-term income support cash transfer • As envisaged in NSSS – a Vulnerable Women’s Benefit, consolidated with VGD

• Transfer size: • Increase transfer size and link to inflation – system should be in place for periodic review to ensure ongoing effectiveness in poverty reduction • Targeting: • Shift to universalisation would address most targeting issues • Strengthening recertification • Use of technology (beneficiary data digitisation, use of NID, biometrics) • Payments • Beneficiaries be provided with multiple options for receiving benefits (banking, mobile banking, mobile financial services, Post Office, etc) • Direct payment to beneficiaries (G2P)

of these options for decision-making • Including budget implications of different scale-up options

• Reform options need to include systems development

required for successful implementation • Technological: including MIS monitoring • Administrative management

• Value for money considerations should be incorporated

throughout decision-making processes (input into Social Protection Committee budget ceiling setting, MTBF, more in-year reporting on costs, beneficiaries, etc).

Annex 2

Terms of Reference Diagnostic Study and Recommendations on (1) Allowance to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and the Widow (HDWW) AND (2) Old Age Allowance (OA) Schemes Implemented by Ministry of Social Welfare (MOSW), Government of Republic of Bangladesh 1. Background Maxwell Stamp PLC (MSP) has been contracted by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as the Managing Agent (MA) for the Strengthening Public Financial Management for Social Protection (SPFMSP) project under Strengthening Government Social Protection for the Poor (SGSP) programme. SPFMSP is a 32 months technical assistance (TA) project aimed to support the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) in the area of social protection. The SPFMSP project is a part of a larger five-component DFID-funded Strengthening Government Social Protection for the Poor (SGSP) Programme launched in 2014. The aim of the overall SGSP Programme is to support the GoB establish policies, budgets and plans for a more effective and efficient social protection system. Other parts of SGSP are being delivered by four implementing partners: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank (WB) and the Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), a local Bangladeshi NGO. As such, SGSP covers five specific components:   



WB is conducting institutional analysis and assessment of key Social Safety Net (SSN) programmes along with Public expenditure reviews of the social protection schemes. UNDP is working with the Planning Commission and Cabinet Division on the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) of Bangladesh. WFP is engaging with the Ministry of Women & Child Affairs (MW&CA) on the Vulnerable Group Development programme and, to support the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on the panel survey building on the existing collaboration with BBS and WFP. In addition, WFP will work with the BBS to implement an annual panel survey linked to the national house hold income and expenditure survey (HIES) and support government to implement reforms in the Vulnerable Group Development scheme. MJF is establishing an independent platform to facilitate engagement of civil society on the NSSS and building on its experience of engaging civil society organisations in policy dialogues by undertaking research, advocacy, and act as an effective challenge function in monitoring the existing schemes.

MSP is implementing the SPFMSP component, a TA project to the Ministry of Finance (MoF). The objective of SPFMSP is to improve social protection policy-making, strategic planning, financing, implementation and monitoring and to build individual and organisational capacity of the Government of Bangladesh. This support is being provided mainly to the Finance Division (FD), MoF, where a new Social Protection Budget Management Unit (SPBMU) is planned, but will also include six other implementing Line Ministries - the Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), the Ministry of Primary Education (MoPME), the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MoWCA), the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) and the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR). Overall, SPFMSP aims to ensure that the MoF and imp lementing line ministries are equipped to deliver their roles in the reform of the social protection programmes in Bangladesh. The underlying objective therefore is to transfer skills and capacity to these organisations.

2. SPFMSP Project The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) is committed to strengthening the social protection system by ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in the use of resources (Value for Money – VfM) in the Sector. This commitment is clearly reflected in the recently approved National Social Security Strategy (NSSS). The Finance Division (FD) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has undertaken the SPFMSP Project, with the assistance of UK DFID and Australian DFAT, to follow through on the VfM commitment. The TAPP of the Project has been approved by the Government and its implementation has already started. DFID has procured a Managing Agent (MA), Maxwell Stamp PLC, to assist the FD and above six LMs to implement the Project. The major activities of the Project are the following: 1.

Establish and Operationalise a Social Protection Budget Management Unit (SPBMU) in the Finance Division –The SPBMU will lead the implementation of the Project and on completion of the Project it will continue as a permanent unit of the Budget Wing of the FD. The purpose of establishment of the SPBMU is to enhance the capacity of the FD: i) to draw evidence based Social Protection(SP) Budget that responds to efficiency and effectiveness objectives, ii) to improve monitoring of SP expenditure and iii) to analyse existing policies, procedures, systems and commission studies and research to improve/ reform the existing systems. Undertake Diagnostic Studies of Existing Social Protection Schemes – The Project will commission diagnostic studies of 7 SP schemes of the above LMs to bring improvement from the perspective of VFM, better targeting, prevent leakages, avoiding duplication and bringing efficiency in the delivery system including payment of benefits. Conduct Research – The Project also will commission demand-driven, issue-based, as well as exploratory research with the objective to support the reform of the existing SP system by filling gaps in knowledge and meeting requests for additional analysis. Assist in Preparing Costed Plans for the Reforms of Priority Social Protection Schemes – The Project will assist the Government in preparing costed plans for SP reforms on the basis of the results of the Diagnostic Studies and research undertaken by the Project. Establish a Management Information System (MIS) to Track and Evaluate SP Expenditure – The Project will assist the FD in establishing a functional and effective MIS to perform cross-cutting monitoring including expenditure tracking, analysis and evaluation of SP schemes. The system will be piloted in the FD and two selected line ministries. Provide Training and Capacity Development – The Project will implement a number of Capacity Development initiatives for SPBMU, FD and the six LMs. The major activities in this area will include national and international training programmes for suitable GoB officials in the different aspects of SP relevant to the objectives of the Project and study tours for policy level officials to acquire knowledge on best global practices in SP.

The Project will be implemented by the SPBMU of the budget wing of the FD under the overall supervision of the Additional Finance Secretary (Budget) who will also act as the National Project Director (NPD) for the Project. An Executive Director(ED), who also will act as the Project Director (PD), will head the SPBMU. The Government has approved the organisational set-up of the SPBMU. The Managing Agent has fielded the requisite number of national and international consultants to support the FD and LMs. The Project will have two governance structures. A Steering Committee will oversee the Project and be chaired by the Finance Secretary with representation from six LMs, UK DFID, Australian DFAT and other government relevant ministries/agencies. In addition to the Steering Committee, a Project Implementation Committee, chaired by the NPD with representation from six LMs and UK DFID and Australian DFAT, will monitor the timely implementation of the Project.

3. Overview of the Allowance to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and the Widow (HDWW) The Government of Bangladesh aims toward all the efforts of the growth escalation and poverty reduction in the shortest possible period. However, fulfilling these targets require prudent policy and suitable action plan. According to the government, inclusive growth policy which includes social safety net programs for the poor is one of the most effective tools for poverty reduction. Henceforth, The National Social Security Policy, ‘Vision-2021’ and other policy documents emphasise providing social protection for old people, small ethnic communities, disabled persons, destitute women and children etc. As per Article 15 (d) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh ‘It shall be a fundamental responsibility of the State to attain a constant increase of productive forces and a steady improvement in the material and cultural standard of living of the people through planned economic growth, with a view to securing its citizens right to social security, that is to say, to public assistance in cases of undeserved want arising from unemployment, illness or disablement, or suffered by widows or orphans or in old age, or in other such cases. Widows and Husband’s Deserted Destitute Women are one of the most vulnerable and poorest segment of population in Bangladesh. The Economic position of widows and husband’s deserted woman has been an important social issue in society. Husband is still the key-provider in all sphere of family lives and after his death family members especially the widow tends to fall into poverty and utmost social insecurity. Many a times, these women are deprived from the rightful inheritance and husbands’ belongings. Considering the reality and sufferings of widow various initiatives have been taken for their social protection and security. The Goal of the program is to improve the economic and social condition of the poor and helpless widowed and husband deserted distressed women and to mitigate their vulnerability. The main Objectives of the program include    

Empowering poor widowed and distressed women through financial support and to improve the widowed women’s status both within the family and in the society. Ensuring socio-economic development and social security for the Widow and Husband’s Deserted destitute Women; Increase the dignity of Widow and Husband’s Deserted destitute Women within family and community; Straightening of mental health through grant to Widow and Husband’s Deserted destitute Women and Grant for Medicare and increase of nutritional support.

The program provides widowed and husband deserted distressed women with monetary support. Approximately 1.15 Million women were provided the monetary support in 2015 – 16 with a revised outlay of Taka 5.3 Billion. Since not all deserving could get the benefits, priority is being be given to the old aged widow and husband deserted destitute women. Priority is also p rovided to the wealth less, homeless and landless respectively. The Government also lays emphasis on priority to be accorded to women with two children who are under sixteen years of age. The Department of Social Service (DSS) under the Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW) is implementing this programme, bearing the administrative and monitoring responsibilities all over the country. It covers all over Bangladesh- all city Corporations and Municipalities, 64 districts, all Upazilas and Unions.

4. Overview of the Old Age Allowance Scheme (OA) To reduce extreme poverty and destitution among older people and widows in Bangladesh, the Old Age Allowance Programme, launched in 1988 is one of the most important social security schemes of the government helping the country fight old age poverty. OA targets 10 (5 men and 5 women) oldest and poorest members of each Ward in each Union, the lowest level district. APWDW targets 5 poorest widows and destitute women in each Ward. The selection is based on the minimum age of 62 for women and 65 for men and is performed by the Ward Committees. As per set criterion old aged persons are eligible to receive this scheme benefit, but the scheme does not covers all eligible old aged population because of the limitation of the government financial capacity. Therefore priority has been set among the eligible old aged persons who are more or most vulnerable than and includes criteria such as - Impoverished, landless and evacuee / displaced person who would be given priority. Similarly, widow, divorced, Widower, childless, separated from family person will be given priority as well. The Department of Social Service (DSS) under the Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW) is implementing this programme, bearing the administrative and monitoring responsibilities all over the country. It covers all over Bangladesh- all city Corporations and Municipalities, 64 districts, all Upazilas and Unions. The OA, also known as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;pensionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; are disbursed by local branches of the government-run Sonali Bank. With an almost 4% of Social Protection budgetary allocation of 14.4 billion, it covers 2.7 million senior citizens in Bangladesh with a monthly allowance of Taka 400 per month per person, paid on a quarterly basis. While the scheme has largely benefitted the elderly in the country it also possess certain challenges both, from the perspective of the Design and Implementation as well as demand perspective of the beneficiary recipients. The proportion of elderly in Bangladesh is growing rapidly, while the coverage of the scheme is unable to cope with the numbers and does not provide a universal coverage suffering from issues of exclusion as well as inclusion errors. While the eligibility criteria is well defined the selection of beneficiaries is highly biased, subjective, non- participatory and discriminatory. Reports of people younger than 62 years of age receiving benefits cannot be denied. There is no digitisation of database of the beneficiaries and hence issues of leakages, double dipping , ghost beneficiaries and other inefficiencies related to fiduciary risks cannot be ruled out. The NSSS treats OA as one of the core schemes and recommends it to take the shape of a Universal scheme that too shall have a bearing of the exchequer. Various studies have also pointed flaws in payment system from the beneficiary perspectives as they have to travel a longer distance to receive their allowance in a limited time period window. The allowance withdrawal place (Bank) from home is an important factor behind not receiving timely money. Physical condition and financial ability to come at withdrawal place are the other factor behind such challenges from the perspective of the recipients. While there are evaluation reports and other research papers on the OA, most are from the perspectives of the beneficiaries as well as implementation. A strong need is thus felt to perform a diagnostic study that would identify the level of operational efficiency for delivering social protection programs leading to a financial viability and operational feasibility analysis to determine feasible options at the lowest possible cost without adversely affecting the quality of transfers as well as the coverage through an analytical report and contribute to the roadmap of Old Age Allowance for strategy and policy development towards life cycle and convergence.

5. Proposed Consultancy Assignment The objective of the proposed clustered diagnostic study is to conduct an in-depth, independent and comprehensive study on both the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widow Allowance and the Old Age Allowance schemes being implemented by the MOSW, and perform an operational and financial analysis of each scheme with a view to identify causes, factors and circumstances, if any, under which the cost effectiveness of operations and resource allocation for the schemes are being hampered leading to sub optimal outcomes. The study will also suggest recommendations that can be further explored by follow-up reform plans that could improve upon the economy and cost effectiveness of the schemes and bring in greater efficiencies in terms of targeting and allocating resources and modelling the size of transfer etc. The study shall also examine and recommend improvement in targeting, recordkeeping arrangements, benefit delivery system, data maintenance, monitoring and evaluation. The study shall provide concrete recommendations that may improve the operational and financial allocative efficiencies of the scheme, provide stability and sustainability and promote value for money by mitigating fiduciary risks for the exchequer. The diagnostic study shall be conducted with a view that the report and recommendations shall be used to develop scheme reform plans. A total of two consultants (hereafter called Service Provider) shall jointly be required to conduct the study on both schemes. One of the Service Providers shall be an International Consultant who will act as the Team Leader, while the other shall be a National Consultant who together would form a consultancy team. Both the consultants shall have common ToR and deliverables so that both complement and supplement each other and shall jointly work towards attaining the goal of the assignment. It is natural that while the National Consultant shall add value to the local knowledge and information about the scheme and facilitate discussions with the local stakeholders, the International Consultant shall bring to the table the global experience and shall add to the body of knowledge in the sector. All deliverables and reports including conducting the workshop shall be performed jointly by the two consultants under the guidance of the Team Leader of SPFMSP project. The International Consultant shall be acting as the Component Team Leader for the assignment and will be responsible for and accountable for achieving the deliverables set out in this ToR. During the inception phase, the team will need to propose more defined ToRs outlined for both consultants with clear roles and responsibilities.

6. Scope of Services This specifically would include: 1.

3. 4.

Review and understand the different characteristic features of the schemes including their objectives, program design, product features such as eligibility criteria; exclusion and inclusion errors if any; size, timelines, frequency and volume of benefits by type of service provider; budgetary allocations versus expenditure analysis; related fiduciary risk, if any, and suggest recommendations for improvement. Review the different types of processes adopted for implementation of each scheme including targeting of beneficiaries; maintenance of a beneficiary data base and accounts; timely and quality services being offered to the beneficiaries; and issues and challenges currently being faced by the service providers as well as beneficiaries in timely delivery of quality clinical services, cash and in-kind transfers. Review the relevant literature and documents including assessment and evaluation reports and meet the relevant officials and donor agencies to get their perspectives. Review the process of managing funds and analyse the flow of funds for OA and HDWW at

7. 8.

various levels including all direct and indirect costs of the incentive packages both for the service providers and the clients / beneficiaries. This will involve an analysis of the overall flow of fund s at facility level and an understanding of the true costs of delivery by facilities. Review and suggest measures for a follow-up Reform Plan to consider that may improve management and governance structure of the schemes in view of VfM and improve financial management practices and accounting practices from national to community level. Especially consider the effectiveness of the role of the MoSW and the Local Government representatives in the various committees for OA and HDWW implementation. Review the process of community involvement and also accountability framework that could lead to cost reduction and an improved impact (which should further be explored in a follow -up Reform Plan). Consult with the management of each the schemes by the Local Government Division (LGD) and Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoSW) and suggest improved coordination. Review the M&E mechanisms of the OA and HDWW scheme with special reference to VfM and suggest improvements. Similarly, document the MIS and Capacity development status on the scheme / DSS and suggest improvements.

In addressing these things, the draft clustered diagnostic report will be expected to follow a template that follows, with sections being filled out individually for each scheme (the diagnostics of the two schemes should be able to be annexed separately but will be presented in a single clustered report) :

Backdrop to the Assignment a. Brief overview of old age and elderly and/or deserted womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vulnerability context in Bangladesh b. Objectives of the OA and HDWW Schemes c. Objectives of the current diagnostic

Methodology a. Methodology: Overview of how diagnostic study was performed, using what info, processes etc. Details about field trips, interviews, focus groups etc.

About the Scheme a. Product: Objectives, Design and Features of the scheme such as eligibility and criteria for exclusion and inclusion, type of benefits in goods, services and cash transfers, benefit size and beneficiariesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; profile etc. b. Selection Processes: Processes for Selection of Beneficiaries including publicity of scheme and knowledge about the rights and duties. Rules, regulations/guidelines and govern ment orders towards selection. c. Delivery Processes: Basic organogram of everyone involved; Process of delivery of goods and antenatal and delivery services (who does what). Timeliness of delivery, grievance process etc. d. Budget and Cost: Budgetary size of the scheme including last 5 years of budget allocation v/s expenditure analysis. Budget should be disaggregated into cost types (staffing, non-staff recurrent by type including office functioning, vehicle maintenance, fuel, facilitation, and capital expenditures such as MIS equipment, vehicles, etc). Map of flows of funds (how funds flow from treasury, Line Ministries, local governments and beneficiaries), including all relevant sources of funding at facility level (government, donor, user fees, voucher reimbursement, etc). Number of beneficiaries by facility type over last 5 years. Cost analysis of the actual cost to

deliver antenatal and delivery care by facility type, as well as in-kind suppprt provided to pregnant women before and after delivery. Monitoring, evaluation and accountability: The current status of recordkeeping of beneficiaries including individual profiling and accounts and maintenance on a decentralised basis; flows of information; reporting process to Line Ministries/GoB (who,what, when); evaluation: evidence, process (how does accountability fit into wider concept of Public Financial Management?);

Assessment of the scheme This section should focus on assessing how the scheme works in practice â&#x20AC;&#x201C; undertaking the actual diagnosis. For each of the aspects below, it should be made clear what the sources of evidence are (evaluatio n reports, consultantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own observations from interviews, etc.), as well as what the major gaps in information are. a.

c. d. e.

f. g.

Adequacy and relevance of the benefit package: Does it meet the needs of beneficiaries? Does it adequately address financial barriers to accessing care? Does it have intended impacts on the quality and quantity of services provided? Effectiveness of the targeting approach: Are existing guidelines implemented as they should be? Are the guidelines practicable? Do they yield efficient targeting? What are the errors of inclusion and exclusion? Delivery: Is the benefit package delivered in a timely manner? Are there any issues with quality of delivery? Are the grievance mechanisms in place appropriate and functioning? Monitoring: Is there adequate management oversight of the scheme, facilitated by monitoring reports? Are accountability systems in place? Budget execution: Are budgets sufficient for implementing the scheme, across all types of expenditure (especially staffing levels and non-staff recurrent spending on fuel, functioning, etc. to allow for adequate monitoring and supervision)? Are disbursements from Treasury made on time? Are there any bottlenecks in the flow of funds? Evaluation: Are arrangements in place to effectively evaluate performance of the programme in terms of outcomes and impacts? Overlap or synergies with other relevant schemes: Are there any areas of duplication with other schemes (including overlap of OA and HDWW) in terms of beneficiaries, objectives, etc. ? Are there synergies in the field of mutually supporting schemes?

Conclusions and Way Forward a.

b. c.

Prima facie evidence from the diagnostic that the scheme could / not be selected for costed reforms and strong reasons thereof. Reasons may also include a revisit of the design, product and processes, implementation practices, global best practices etc. Way forward for follow-up reform plan, identify and discuss the current gaps and existing issues and challenges that may be further explored in the reform plan. Identify possible courses of reform plans â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Improving / Combining / Merger of Schemes, Consolidation of Schemes, Convergence of Schemes with Single Nodal Authority, New Scheme etc. Identify the externalities related to the scheme on designing the costed reforms. For example, external line departments may play important role of convergence towards the reformed plans.

7. Deliverables and Output The consultants shall be reporting to the Team Leader of SPFMSP Project at Dhaka office and shall be required to perform various tasks in order to deliver the following: 1. First Deliverable – Short Research/Work Plan including Understanding of Tasks, Work Plan and Timelines. Research Methodology including the application of different tools and techniques shall also be a part of this deliverable (10 Days). This shall include but not limited to, Orientation on Assignment with SPBMU and MSP; Literature Review and Briefing; Pre-arranged meetings with Finance Ministry, Line Ministry, Line Directorate and Donor Agencies. Designing Research Plan including Tools and Techniques; a short Presentation and Finalisation of the work plan; field visits. 2. Second Deliverable – Zero Draft Report on Findings and Recommendations (12 Days), Data and information gathering and data processing; further discussions and fact findings, if any, and submission of the Zero Draft Report to the SPFMSP project Team Leader. There shall be a gap of time before the next activity. This time period shall be utilised by the SPFMSP project and Government stakeholders to provide comments and opinions on the draft report. 3.

Third Deliverable- Final Draft Report (05 Days)

Once the comments and suggestions are provided to the team of consultants, it is expected that they submit the final draft report within a week using the buffer of 3 days as mentioned above. 4. Fourth Deliverable – Conduct Half Day Stakeholders’ Workshop on Findings and Recommendations (03 Days) Consultants shall be responding / incorporating the suggestions received from the SPFMSP project, and conduct Stakeholders’ Workshop in Dhaka. This shall involve the second travel to Dhaka. 5. Fifth Deliverable – Submission of Draft Final Report based on opinions / comments / recommendations from the workshop within the next two days. (05 Days) In this final report, the consultants shall be required to submit two separate reports, one each on OAA and on HDDWA as part of their deliverable in conjunction with the ‘clustered’ diagnostic study.

Schedule of Deliverables and Outputs

Deliverables Deliverable No. of Days  Detailed Joint briefing with Executive Director, Team Leader and other team members’  Literature Review of Available Documents and Reports. 6  Meetings with Ministry of Finance (MoF), Line Ministry and Line Directors in consultation with the Team Leader.  Prepare and present a Research Plan and Tools & Techniques.  Field Visit to One District Upazilas, Unions and Meetings with Service 2 Providers and Beneficiaries  Field Visit to Second District Upazilas, Unions and Meetings with 2 Service Providers and Beneficiaries  Data analysis and Information Processing 12  Submission of Draft Report Feedback from SPFMSP  Incorporation of Suggestions and comments and submission of final draft report to Team Leader and DFID Dissimenation Workshop including preliminary discussion for an Evidence towards Reform Final Report Total Days

Output

Deadline

Inception Report Submitted

28/11/2008

02/12/2016 Field Visit Completed

Zero Draft Report Submitted

08/12/2016

10/01/2017 20/01/2017

5 3 5 35

Note: Key Dhaka Districts Home Office

Final Draft Report

01/02/2017

Dissemination Workshop Final Report

10/02/2017 28/02/2017

International 9 0 22 31

National 9 4 22 35

Assumed that the work shall begin on 19 November 2016

8. Indicative Sources of information for Desk Review The consultant will review the following indicative literature of the HDWW scheme as a part of desk review: 

      

An Assessment of Widow Allowance Programme in Bangladesh – the Supply Side Perspectives by Nilufar Jesmin Khan, Department of General and Continuing Education North South University, Bangladesh Small Scale Old Age and Widow Allowance for the Poor in Rural Bangladesh: An Evaluat ion Research Monograph Series No. 36-by The Research and Evaluation Division (RED) Improving the Targeting Effectiveness of Social Safety Nets in Bangladesh - Professor Abul Barkat, Ph.D Department of Economics, University of Dhaka Implementation Manual for allowances to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and Widow (Revised)- GoB Implementation Manual for the Allowances Program of Insolvent Persons with Disabilities ( Revised)-GoB Implementation Manual for allowances for Old Age Allowance Program (Revised)- GoB Implementation manual of other schemes implementing by MoSW Bangladesh Rana Plaza Compensation Scheme - A Technical report on the scheme design, and

TOR - Diagnostic Study and Recommendations on (1) Allowance to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and the Widow (HDWW) AND (2) Old Age Allowance (OA) Schemes Implemented by Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), Government of Republic of Bangladesh operationalisation, and lessons learnt, International Labour Office, Public Finance, Actuarial and Statistics Services Branch (SOC/PFACTS), Social Protection Department.

The consultant will review the following indicative literature of the OA scheme as a part of desk review: 



      

“Small Scale Old Age and Widow Allowance for the Poor in Rural Bangladesh: An E valuation” Research Monograph Series No. 36. Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC, July 2008 http://research.brac.net/monographs/Monograph_36%20.pdf “The Service Delivery System of the Old Age Allowance Programme of the Government of Bangladesh: An Assessment”. Mostafa Hasan (Department of Social Work, Jogannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh) A.K.M. Mahbubuzzaman and Shofiqur Rahman Chowdhury (Department of Social Work, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh) SUST Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 18, No.4, 2012; P: 68-76 July 30, 2012 http://library.sust.edu:8081/bitstream/handle/123456789/114/Shafiq_SCW%20okay.doc?sequen ce=1 “Old Age Allowance Programme of Bangladesh: Challenges and Lessons”, Sharifa Begum, Senior Research Fellow, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) http://www.ipc-undp.org/conference/south-south-learningevent/presentations/Sharifa%20Begum.pdf “Social safety nets in Bangladesh: an analysis of impact of old age allowance program”- by Md. Ansar Uddin, Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; “Improving the Targeting Effectiveness of Social Safety Nets in Bangladesh ” - Professor Abul Barkat, Ph.D Department of Economics, University of Dhaka Implementation Manual for Old Age Allowance Program ( Revised)- GoB Old Age Social Protection Option for Bangladesh Volume-1- Bazlul Haque Khondker ( University of Dhaka, Charles Knox-Vydmanov and Andrea Vilela ( HelpAge International) The consultants shall be required to perform discussions at different level within the Ministry and Divisions. Following is an indicative list of government officials and other stakeholders that consultant shall be required to meet for each scheme.

9. Indicative list of Stakeholder for meetings and interviews The consultants shall be required to perform discussions at different level within the Ministry and Divisions. Following are indicative lists of government officials and other stakeholders that co nsultant shall be required to meet for each scheme.

Indicative list of Stakeholder for meetings and interviews on HDWW: A. In Dhaka a) b) c) d) e) f)

At the Ministry Level: Secretary / Additional Secretary (HDWW) / Relevant Joint Secretary / Other Key Officials At the Line Directorate Level: Director General Social Welfare Affairs (DGSW), Director HDWW and Other Key Officials. Relevant Officials of DFID Key Officials of HDWW and other relevant Development Partners Civil Societies / Banks / Postal department associated with HDWW Scheme Other relevant experts / knowledgeable persons in HDWW Scheme

B. At District Level a)

Deputy Commissioner, District Social Welfare Officer etc.

Civil Societies / Banks associated with HDWW Scheme

C. Upazila and Union Level a) b) c) d)

Upazila Chairman / Vice Chairman Upazila Nirbahi officer Upazila Bank Manager and Upazila Social Welfare Officer HDWW Selection Committees

D. Field Level a) b)

Meeting with a few selected beneficiaries Non beneficiaries who were eligible for HDWW but not included

Following is an indicative list of government officials and other stakeholders that consultant shall be required to meet for OA Scheme: E.

In Dhaka a) b) c) d) e) f)

At the Ministry Level: Secretary / Additional Secretary (OA) / Relevant Joint Secretary / Other Key Officials At the Line Directorate Level: Director General Social Welfare Affairs (DGSW), Director OA and Other Key Officials. Relevant Officials of DFID Key Officials of OA and other relevant Development Partners Civil Societies / Banks / Postal department associated with OA Scheme Other relevant experts / knowledgeable persons in OA Scheme

At District Level a) b)

Deputy Commissioner, District Social Welfare Officer etc Civil Societies / Banks associated with OA Scheme

G. Upazila and Union Level a) b) c) d)

Upazila Chairman / Vice Chairman Upazila Nirbahi officer Upazila Bank Manager and Upazila Social Welfare Officer OA Selection Committees

H. Field Level a) b)

Meeting with a few selected beneficiaries Non beneficiaries who were eligible for OA but not included

10. Initial Briefing and Field Visit It is expected that the consultant shall begin their work with a short orientation on the programs and tasks and shall meet the SPFMSP team and its members within the first week. ď&#x201A;ˇ

Dhaka (Inception Phase) o o o o o o

Orientation on Assignment with SPFMSP and Literature Review Meetings with Officials of Line Ministry and their Directorate Formulating Methodology including Tools and Techniques Preparing Work Plan Presentation on the Inception Report Finalisation of the Inception Report

TOR - Diagnostic Study and Recommendations on (1) Allowance to the Husband Deserted Destitute Women and the Widow (HDWW) AND (2) Old Age Allowance (OA) Schemes Implemented by Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), Government of Republic of Bangladesh At the end of the Inception Phase, the service provider is supposed to be ready with the knowledge and information on the policy as well as strategy perspective. After his / her meetings with relevant government officials and MSP team as well as secondary literature review would equip her / him with the objectives and questions as well as an approach to be adopted for the study. Field Visit: The service provider is expected to be in the field and would begin from the district headquar ter meeting the relevant officials including district officials of the line directorate. The consultant will also discuss with the relevant officials of the upazila and union level. They will also have consultations with the beneficiaries and other important stakeholders as indicated above. Field visit shall be undertaken where two or more Upazilas (to be decided later) should be covered by the service provider. Depending on the work requirement as agreed between the service provider and the Team Leader of the SPFMSP, only one district could be chosen and program modified accordingly.

11. Counterpart Staff Availability The service provider shall be reporting to the Team Leader of the SPFMSP project as well as the Project Manager and Project Director of Maxwell Stamp. All deliverables are required to be essentially approved by the Project Team Leader. If necessary, the counterpart staff shall also be accompanying the service provider during the field visits and shall facilitate meetings and discussions. The servi ce provider shall be provided a working space at the office of the SPFMSP in Dhaka, however they are expected to have their own laptops and / or other equipment to perform their tasks.

12. Location of Assignment The consultant will undertake work in Dhaka and at least two selected Upazilas / Unions as the case may be, where the WA scheme is being implemented. Essential Qualification of the Service Provider International Consultant:  

Master’s or higher degree in Social Sciences / Social Works or in a relevant field. Substantial, relevant work experience in Government Social Protection including experience of program / project review. Previous work on diagnostic studies of social pro tection schemes in general and old age and petition issues in particular will be an advantage. Experience in Asian region in general and Bangladesh in particular shall be an added advantage

Fluent in spoken, written, and reading abilities in English; Speaking and understanding Bangla will be an additional qualification; National Consultant:    

Post- graduate or Graduate in Social Science or relevant field Substantial, relevant experience of working in social protection in general and Old Age / Pension development in particular with familiarisation in GOB’s Social Protection Systems. Familiarisation with GoB’s Public Financial Management (PFM) systems will be an advantage. Strong oral and written communication in Bangla and English

Annex 3

Annex 3: List of consultations Title: Introductory and planning meeting Date 19November 2016

Place MSL Office , Gulshan

Name

Designation

Mr. Siddiqur Rahman Chowdhury

Team Leader, SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist-MoSW, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with Capacity Development and Institutional Development Specialist Date 20 November 2016

Place MSL Office , Gulshan-2

Name

Designation

Ms. Nahid Sultana

Capacity Development and Institutional Development Specialist

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW,SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with MIS Specialists Date 20 November 2016

Place MSL Office , Gulshan-2

Name

Designation

Mr. Justus Oguna

MIS Specialist, SPFMSP

Mr. Arif Hasan

MIS Coordinator, SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Officials of Department of Social Services (DSS) under Ministry of Social Welfare Date 21 November 2016

Place DSS, Agargoan

Name of the Officials

Designation

Md. Abu Mohammad Yousuf

Program Director (Joint Secretary), DSS

Ms. SayedaFerdousAkter

Additional Director (Planning & Dev.) DSS

Mr. Farid Ahmed Mollah

Deputy Director ( Social), OAA, HDDWW, DSS

Mr. Mohammad Rezaur Rahman

Assistant Director, Finance, DSS

Md. Kamrul Ehsan

Social Service Officer, DSS

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Officials of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) under Ministry of Planning Date 21 November 2016

Place BBS, Agargoan

Name of the Officials

Designation

Dr. Dipankar Roy

Project Director, HIES, BBS

Md. MashudAlam

Director, Demography and Health Wing, BBS

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Officials of Access to Information (a2i) Program, Prime Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office (PMO) Date 22November 2016

Place A2i, PMO, Tejgoan

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Anir Chowdhury

Policy Advisor, a2i

Mr. Tohrul Hasan

Program Coordinator, a2i

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist, MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Consultants of Research Study on Payment System, SPFMSP Date 22 November 2016

Place MSL, Gulshan2

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Sayed Sajedul Karim

National Consultant, Research Study, SPFMSP

Mr. Rezauddin M. Chowdhury

National Consultant, Research Study, SPFMSP

Mr. Abdul Hannan

Cash and Asset Transfer Specialist, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Officials of ManusherJonno Foundation (MJF) on Grievance System Date 23November 2016

Place MJF, Gulshan2

Name of the Officials

Designation

Ms. Sumana Sultana Mahmud

Program Manager – Social Protection

Mr. Mohammad MohshinKabir

Deputy Program Manager – Social Protection

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Finance Division, Ministry of Finance Date

Place Bangladesh Secretariat

23 November 2016

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury

Additional Secretary& National Project Director, SPFMSP, MoF, Finance Division

Mr. Monzoon Alam Bhuiyan

Executive Director, SPFMSP/SPBMU

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Date 23 November 2016

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Justus O Oguna

MIS Specialist, SPFMSP

Dr. Bazlul Hoque Khondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Place Bangladesh Secretariat

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. MahediMasuduzzaman

Senior Assistant Secretary, MoF, Finance Division

Mr. Mizanul Karim

Senior System Analyst, MoF, Finance Division

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Justus O Oguna

MIS Specialist, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Wrap-up meeting with SPFMSP Team Date 24 November 2016

Place MSL, Gulshan2

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Siddiqur Rahman Chowdhury

Team Leader, SPFMSP

Ms. Treena Watson

Project Coordinator, SPFMSP

Dr. Kavim V Bhatnagar

Economist, SPFMSP

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Ms. Emily Wylde

International Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with Upazila Social Services Officers (USSO), DSS, MoSW Date 28November 2016

Place Institute of Public Finance (IPF), Shegunbacha, Dhaka

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Md. Shafiuddin

USSO, Chandanish, Chittagong, DSS,

Mr. Mosharar Hossain

Urban SSO, Dhaka

Mr. Kanchan Kumar Das

USSO, Shibgonj, ChapaiNababgonj

Mr. Mohammad Mominur Rahman

USSO, Tungipara, Gopalgonj

Ms. Urbashi Dewan

USSO, Kaptai,Rangamati

Mr. Mohammad Sayef Uddin

USSO, LakshamComilla

Md. Asafuddola

USSO, Atghoria , Pabna

Md. Abdus Salam

USSO, Sadar, Patuakhali

Md. Harunur Rashid

USSO, Basail, Tangail

Ms. Yasmin Shikdar

USSO, AraihazarNarayongonj

Md. Basirul Islam

USSO, Bianibazar, Sylhet

Md. Bilkis Akhtar Jahan

USSO, Atoary, Panchagarh

Ms. Sayeeda Sultana

USSO, Sadar, Thakurgoan

Ms. Mirza Nizuara

USSO, Trishal, Mymensingh

Ms. Shirin Sultana

USSO, Jagannathpur,Sunamgonj

Md. Akhlakur Rahman

USSO, Pathorghata, Barguna

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Field Visit: Tangail Title: Consultations with the UpazilaNirbahi Officer (UNO),NagorpurUpazila, Tangail Date 30 November 2016

Place NagorepurTan gail

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. TowhidElahi

UpazilaNirbahi Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Upazila Post Ofice Official, NagorpurUpazila, Tangail Date 30 November 2016

Place NagorepurTan gail

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Md. Abdul Jabbar

Inspector, South Subdivision, Tangail

Mr. Md. Abdul Karim Mia

Upazila Post Master, Nagorepur, Tangail

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Beneficiaries and Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit) at Nagorpur, Tangail Date 01 December 2016

Place

Name of the Beneficiaries

Designation

Mr. Nazir Sheikh

OAA Beneficiaries

Mr. AbdusSamad

UthanBoithak at Babna para Village,

Mr. JaanBokhBapari

Nagorepur Union

Ms. Sufia Begum

Mr. BasiruddinBapari

Mr. KaromBapari Mr. AzizulBapari Mr. Ahmed Bapari

Date 01 December 2016

Place

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Name of the Beneficiaries

UthanBoithak at Babna para Village,

Mr. Rahim Bapari

Nagorepur Union

Mr. Abdul Hai

Designation

Mr. Zamir Sheikh

Mr. Kalim Uddin Mia

OAA Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit)

Ms. Amena Ms. Azufa Ms. Rahima Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Date

Place

Name of the Beneficiaries

Designation

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

Date

Place

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Name of the Beneficiaries

UthanBoithak at Babna para Village,

Ms. Shukuri Begum

Nagorepur Union

Ms. Khaleda

Designation

Ms. Lutfa Begum

HDDWW beneficiaries Ms. Ayesha

01 December 2016 Ms. Farida Akter

Date 01 December 2016

Place

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Name of the Beneficiaries

UthanBoithak at Babna para Village,

Ms. HazaraKhatun

Nagorepur Union

MsAmena Begum

Designation HDDWW Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit)

Ms. Thundu Begum

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the NagorpurUnion Parishad, NagorpurUpazila, Tangail Date 01 December 2016

Place Nagorpur Union Parishad

Name of the UP representatives

Designation

Mr. Md. Mostafizur Rahman

Chairman, Nagorpur Union Parishad, Tangail

Mr. Md. Muktar Mia

Member, Ward-1, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Md. Latif Mia

Member, Ward-2, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Abdul Hakim

Member, Ward-3, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Humayunkabir

Member, Ward-4, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Md. Omar Ali

Member, Ward-5, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Md. Khokon Mia

Member, Ward-6, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Md. Ali Hossain

Member, Ward-7, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Md. Tara Mia

Member, Ward-8, Nagorpur UP

Mr. Ali Hossain

Member, Ward-9, Nagorpur UP

Ms. Shirin Begum

Women Member for ward 1, 2, 3, Nagorpur UP

Ms. Safia Yusuf

Women Member for ward 4, 5, 6, Nagorpur UP

Ms. Sorborani

Women Member for ward 7, 8, 9, Nagorpur UP

Mr. MahbubAlamKhasnobi

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nagorpur, Tangail

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with DC at TangailDistrict Date 01 December 2016

Place

Name of the Officials

DC Office at Tangail district

Designation

Md. Mahboob Hossain

Deputy Commissioner, Tangail

Md. Abdul Hamid

Assistant Director, DSS

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations and wrap up meeting, Tangail 01 December 2016

District Services Tangail

Social Office,

Md. Abdul Hamid

Assistant Director

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Field Visit: Kurhigram Title: Consultations with DSS Officials at Kurigram District Date

Place

07 December 2016

ZilaParishad Kurigram district

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. SM Momtazul Islam

Deputy Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Habibur Rahman

Upazila Social Services Officer, Sadar& 3 additional Upazilas

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with DC at Kurigram District Date

Place

08 December 2016

DC Office at Kurigram district

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Md. Rafiqul Islam Selim

Additional Deputy Commissioner ( General), Kurigram

Mr. Habibur Rahman

Upazila Social Services Officer, Sadar& 3 additional Upazilas

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. SM Momtazul Islam

Deputy Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with Upazila Social Services Officer, NageshwariUpazila at Kurigram District Date

Place

Name of the Officials Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Designation Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

08 December 2016

DC Office at Kurigram district

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. SM Momtazul Islam

Deputy Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations the UpazilaNirbahi Officer (UNO),NageshwariUpazila,Kurigram Date

Place

08 December 2016

NageshwariUpazila

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Abu Hayat Md. Rahmatullah

UpazilaNirbahi Officer, Nageshwari, Kurigram

Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the UpazilaParishad, NageshwariUpazila, Kurigram Date

Place

08 December 2016

NageshwariUpazila

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Md. AbulKashemSarker

Upazila Chairman, Nageshwari, Kurigram

Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with Sonali Bank at NageshwariUpazila, Kurigram Date

Place

08 December 2016

Sonali Bank, Nageshwari

Name of the Officials

Designation

Mr. Raton Kumar Roy

Manager, Sonali Bank, Nageshwari

Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Beneficiaries and Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit) at NageshwariUpazila, Kurigram Date 08 December 2016

Place UthanBoithak at Shontoshpur&N egshwari

Name of the Beneficiaries

Designation

Ms. Kosiron OAA Beneficiaries Ms. Mojiron Mr. Rahamat Ali Ms. Rokeya Mr. Shahadat

OAA Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit)

Ms. Rajiba Ms. JohuraKasari Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

Date

Place UthanBoithak at Shontoshpur&N egshwari

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Name of the Beneficiaries Ms. Hazera

Designation HDDWW beneficiaries

Ms. Moriom Ms. Achhia Ms. Johora

HDDWW Non Beneficiaries (Eligible but not receiving Benefit)

Ms. Amena 08 December 2016 Ms. Rahima Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Union Committee at Nageshwari UnionParishad, NageshwariUpazila, Kurigram Date 08 December 2016

Place NageshwariUn ion Parishad

Name of the UP representatives

Designation

Al Haj AminulHoqueKhandoker

Chairman, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Yunus Ali

Member, Ward-4, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Anisur Rahman

Member, Ward-5, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Ruhul Amin

Member, Ward-7, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Habibulislam

Member, Ward-8, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Ziaur Rahman

Member, Ward-9, Nageshwari Union Parishad

Mr. Ms. Asma Begum

Women Member for ward 4, 5, 6,

Mr. Ms. Moyna Begum

Women Member for ward 7, 8, 9,

Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations with the Union Committee ofSontoshpur Union Parishad, NageshwariUpazila, Kurigram Date 08 December 2016

Place Nageshwari Union Parishad

Name of the UP representatives

Designation

Mr. Md. Motiur Rahman

Member, Ward-6, Shontoshpur Union Parishad

Mr. Md. SamsulHoque

Member, Ward-8, Shontoshpur Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Tajul Islam

Member, Ward-1, Shontoshpur Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Abdus Salam

Member, Ward-3, Shontoshpur Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Chan Talukder

Member, Ward-7, Shontoshpur Union Parishad

Mr. Md. Salekul Islam

Upazila Social Services Officer, Nageshwari&Brungamari

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP

Title: Consultations and wrap up meeting, Kurigram 08 December 2016

District Services Kurigram

Social Office,

Mr. EmdadulHoque

Assistant Director, DSS, Kurigram

Mr. Kazi Ariful Huda

Social Protection Specialist- MoSW, SPFMSP

Dr. BazlulHoqueKhondker

National Consultant, Diagnostic Study, SPFMSP