ADB approves $250m loan for Bangladesh social resilience program
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$250 million policy-based loan to the government of Bangladesh to greatly help finance reforms targeted at bettering the inclusiveness and responsiveness of the country’s social development and resilience program.
Bangladesh has made exceptional progress in reducing poverty in the last two decades, said an ADB news release on Friday.
The poverty incidence declined from 48.9 percent in 2000 to 20.5 percent in 2019, it added.
However, while many persons were lifted from extreme poverty, a significant number continue to live at a subsistence level, ADB said.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has considerably damaged the socioeconomic situation of Bangladesh with the decline of the country’s gross domestic product to around 5.2 percent in fiscal year (FY) 2020 from 8.2 percent in FY 2019.
“Enhancing social protection support is crucial to cushioning the consequences of the pandemic,” said ADB Senior Social Sector Specialist for South Asia Hiroko Uchimura-Shiroishi, adding: “ADB supports the government’s intention to leverage the COVID-19 pandemic as an possibility to strengthen its social protection programs as an essential means of building the resilience of the indegent and supporting an inclusive recovery.”
The Strengthening Social Resilience Program includes institutional and policy reforms to handle cross-sector issues of social development in Bangladesh. Included in these are bettering the coverage and efficiency of the social protection system through bettering the administrative efficiency of social protection management.
This program will expand its outreach to vulnerable women by increasing the coverage of both later years allowance for women over 62 and the allowance for widowed, deserted, and destitute ladies in 150 sub-district units or upazilas, based on the release.
Other reforms include promoting the application of mobile financial services and simplifying identification and documentation requirements for opening a bank-account and broadening the scope of social protection from mere poverty relief alive cycle social and health responses, including social insurance system.
ADB will also give a technical assistance grant to support program implementation, policy analyses, and capacity development for social development-related ministries. The technical assistance is estimated to cost $1.2 million which is financed on a grant basis by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction.
ADB is committed to achieving a booming, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eliminate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it really is owned by 68 members - 49 from the spot.
