Poverty alleviation projects require stronger monitoring

Government projects targeting the poor, like any other projects, if not well planned and properly implemented, will not yield their desired outcomes. On July 28, the government slashed the allocation of two projects focusing on poverty reduction: "Income Support Programme for the Poorest Project" and "Amar Bari Amar Khamar Project". The objectives of the first project was to benefit six lakh poorest pregnant women and lactating mothers and 27 lakh poor people across 43 Upazilas in four of the poorest districts which are Gaibandha, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat and Nilphamari. The second project had a nation-wide coverage and was targeted to benefit 54.6 lakh poor people through agriculture-based income generation activities.  

In case of both these projects, there have been some implementation issues that prompted the reduction of funding which will ultimately affect poverty alleviation efforts for the poor and vulnerable people in the country. The various weaknesses in project implementation and management in general such as frequent amendments, cost escalation, delays, time extensions, etc. the Planning Ministry seriously regretted during a high level meeting attended by all secretaries from all the ministries and divisions, on August 13.

The state of poverty has deteriorated during the last four months due to the widespread economic woes resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic—after significant gains in poverty reduction were made over the last three decades. As per the Planning Commission, the percentage of the ultra-poor in total population has gone up from 10.5 percent to 20.5 percent as of June, 2020. In this situation, the government should make best possible efforts at implementation and monitoring of projects so that their impact on poverty reduction is truly felt.

Since a large-scale out migration of population from the cities to the rural areas has taken place during the last four months due to loss of employment and income, for the first time in decades, it is plausible that a significant pressure on poor families are being generated by the in-comers due to sharing of food with their family members. This is bringing down average food consumption which is affecting nutrition levels. Those who used to work in urban areas and sent money to their families living in the villages, have themselves become burdens upon their own families. This phenomena is forcing millions of families to slip back into the poverty bracket.

It is important to note that the two above projects whose budget has been curtailed, are funded from the government's revenue budget. In fact, most of the projects/programmes for the poor, alternatively called social safety net schemes, are funded through the revenue budget.

In Bangladesh, there is no central monitoring system for social safety net projects/programmes. The progress of implementation are monitored by the respective projects/programmes themselves. However, the monitoring arrangements and practices are not well established in these programmes. The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) under the Ministry of Planning conducts monitoring activities of the development projects as per its mandate. In 1984, when the IMED was established from its parent organisation, Project Monitoring Division, established in 1977, it has been monitoring several hundred projects included in the Annual Development Programme every year.

However, IMED is not responsible for monitoring projects/programmes funded through the revenue budget of the government. Most of the social safety net programmes are funded from revenue budget and IMED is not monitoring them.

In general, the social safety net programmes and projects have weak monitoring capacity. The National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) adopted in 2015 has recognised the weakness in their monitoring capacity and recommended to build a strong results-based monitoring and evaluation system for the social safety net schemes. A technical assistance project is currently being implemented by the government to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation capacity of the social security sector in the country.

Monitoring is an ongoing process that collects routine information to find out whether a project is making progress as per its planned objectives. Proper monitoring should continuously collect critical information, give status of project implementation, assess benefits derived by the target population, and measure the knowledge and skills acquired by the target people with project support.

Currently, monitoring of social safety net projects and programmes in Bangladesh is limited to tracking of activities implemented. Primarily, it covers progress achieved in terms of cash disbursement, food distribution, number of beneficiaries enrolled, training/meetings conducted, and awareness promotion materials produced. No programmes and projects have adequate tools to conduct in-depth monitoring. The monitoring process is not systematically used to assess the actual changes in status of the target families, identify weaknesses and undertake improvements in project implementation. There is no system to track desired results from these projects/programmes and find out whether the ultimate objectives of the interventions which are: improving the overall well-being of the target population, reduction of poverty, employment generation, technical capacity improvements, etc., have been achieved or not.

Most of the social safety net programmes do not have detailed logical framework and thus it is difficult to comprehend what specific results they are trying to achieve. These do not have adequate measurement standards and guidelines, i.e., performance indicators, data collection and use norms, baselines, quality control and reporting procedures.

For effective implementation, there is a need to monitor the programmes more systematically. Routine monitoring and data collection is a necessity in social security related projects and programmes since these are funded out of the revenue budget of the government and monitoring is weaker compared to the development projects and programmes. Systematic and routine monitoring are essential to assess the intervention quality, processes and measurement of performance of inputs, outputs and outcomes. In the absence of strong monitoring system, there will be some shocks, as in the case of the two poverty reduction projects, "Income Support Programme for the Poorest Project" and "Amar Bari Amar Khamar Project", whose funding were cancelled.

Dr Nawshad Ahmed is an economist and urban planner.