The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Bangladesh today signed a $250 million loan agreement to further strengthen Bangladesh’s social protection system.
Md. Shahriar Kader Siddiky, Secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), and Edimon Ginting, Country Director, ADB, signed the loan agreement on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB, respectively, at a ceremony at ERD in Dhaka today.
“The Second Strengthening Social Resilience Program aims to accelerate reforms in increasing the coverage and efficiency of the protection, improving the financial inclusion of disadvantaged people, and strengthening the response to diversified protection needs,” said Country Director Edimon Ginting.
“Building on the first Strengthening Social Resilience Program completed in June 2022, the second program helps improve the policy, regulatory, and institutional environment for social protection in Bangladesh,” Ginting added.
This new ADB program supports the government’s Action Plan Phase II of the National Social Security Strategy, 2021–2026, to strengthen protective and preventive capacity of the social protection system in Bangladesh. The program will help improve efficiency in the social protection program management, enhance protection for the most vulnerable, and improve the social protection scope by introducing contributory protection schemes.
This will help reduce vulnerability, exclusion, and the risk of people falling into further poverty.
The program introduces a verification scheme of beneficiary’s survival for cash-based social protection programs to reduce leakages.
It also consolidates two cash-based protection programs for people with disabilities to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
The program will integrate climate adaptive measures into social protection to strengthen resilience against climate vulnerability, including identification of people who are most at risk to climate change-induced disasters to help determine the appropriate assistance.
