Open AccessTwo Social Protection Programs in Pakistan
Author(s) -
Ijaz Nabi
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the lahore journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1811-5446
pISSN - 1811-5438
DOI - 10.35536/lje.2013.v18.isp.a13
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , economic growth , launched , social protection , welfare , cash transfers , social welfare , poverty , business , cash , economics , political science , finance , engineering , market economy , philosophy , linguistics , law , electrical engineering
Pakistan has launched two far reaching social protection programs. Thefederal government’s Benazir Income Support Program has, at its core, anunconditional cash grant for the poorest households. Responding to the concernthat this runs the risk of creating a large pool of permanent government handoutrecipients, the federal government has also launched an ambitious skillsdevelopment program. At the provincial level, the government of Punjab isimplementing skills development as social welfare in the four poorest SouthernPunjab districts. The paper discusses the structure of the two programs, theirsuccess at reaching the poor and the monitoring challenges to assess their overalleffectiveness.