The government today signed a $250 million loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to further strengthen Bangladesh's social protection system.

"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," ADB Country Director Edimon Ginting said.

"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."

This new ADB programme 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 Manila-based global donor said in a statement.

The programme will help improve efficiency in the social protection programme management, enhance protection for the most vulnerable, and improve the social protection scope by introducing contributory protection schemes, it said.

This will help reduce vulnerability, exclusion, and the risk of people falling into further poverty, according to the statement.

The programme introduces a verification scheme of beneficiary's survival for cash-based social protection programmes to reduce leakages.

It also consolidates two cash-based protection programmes for people with disabilities to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Moreover, the programme 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.

Md Shahriar Kader Siddiky, secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD), and the ADB country director signed the loan agreement at a ceremony at the ERD in Dhaka today.

ADB's support strengthens the protection for vulnerable women and transgender people by increasing the number of beneficiaries under the widow allowance programme and expanding the coverage of the livelihood support programme for transgender people.

In addition, Bangladesh Bank is doubling its funding for the Small Enterprise Refinancing Scheme for Women Entrepreneurs to expand access of women small business operators to financial services.

Another aim of the programme is to strengthen the governance mechanism of the employment injury scheme pilot, focusing on the ready-made garments sector.

It also supports establishing a tripartite committee—comprising workers' association, employers' association, and the government—on social protection for workers under the labour ministry as a key institutional arrangement in further developing the country's social insurance schemes.

ADB will provide a $1 million grant from its Technical Assistance Special Fund.

Another $1 million grant will be extended from the ADB-administered Community Resilience Partnership Program Trust Fund under the Community Resilience Financing Partnership Facility to support programme implementation, technical and policy analyses, and capacity building of relevant government agencies.