“Budgetary constraints major issue in broadening social protection”
Budgetary constraints have become a major issue to broaden social protection in the country and extend the coverage of programs such as disability assistance programs and senior citizens programs, says Dr. Ganga Tilakaratna.
“Moreover, there is very highly unequal distribution of resources within the existing social protection system which includes the social assistance insurance as well as labour market components, said Dr. Ganga Tilakaratna -Head of Poverty and Social Welfare -Policy Research Institute of Policy Studies at a conference, organized by Advocata Institute.
According to Dr. Tilakaratna, the government spends around over three per cent of its GDP on the social protection sector: However, half of the social protection expenditure goes to finance the public-servants pension scheme which currently covers only less than 25 % of the elderly population in the country.
“On the other hand, we know that over 50 % of the senior citizens of the country are without any social protection coverage. There is a highly unequal distribution of resources within the system which needs to be addressed.”
Dr. Tilakaratna stated that Samurdhi, despite being the largest safety net program in the country, operating for nearly two decades, the cash transfer program of the Samurdhi program suffers from notable targeting issues both inclusion and exclusion errors. The program lacks clear eligibility criteria to select the beneficiaries and it also lacks a clear exit mechanism to remove those who are no longer eligible to receive benefits.
“Moreover, there is no mechanism to monitor and evaluate the beneficiaries on a regular basis for their eligibility.”
She opined that immediate reform must be done to address targeting errors, which requires a clearly defined set of criteria to identify the beneficiaries, a defined exit strategy and a monitoring and evaluation process to evaluate the beneficiaries at least every three years to see their eligibility to continue to receive the benefits.
The Samurdhi program is more than just a cash transfer program; it was initially designed with the dual objective of reducing vulnerability through the cash transfer program and the social security or the insurance program and alleviating poverty through the microfinance and livelihood development program, she stated. She stressed the need to strike the right balance between these different components as much of the emphasis of samurai has been on the cash transfer program and the bulk of the budget has gone into some of this cash transfer program.
According to her, the most important factor is to give more emphasis on livelihood development and the microfinance component which operates with a network of around over a thousand microfinance banks all around the country.
“It is important to give more emphasis on these components that would assist the low-income households to improve their income. So that without having to rely on government monthly cash transfers they could reach a sufficient level of income.”
Dr. Tilakaratna emphasised the need to limit cash transfers to the neediest or the extreme poor groups whilst giving access to other vulnerable groups to the livelihood and the microfinance component.