LARGE numbers across Bangladesh live without secure forms of social protection, but whose responsibility is it to ensure that provisions are in place?

I recently attended a lecture which formed part of the BDI lecture series. This one, “States, Citizens and Social Protection: Reflections on the Asian Experience,” was led by Naila Kabeer (Professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) and Hossain Zillur Rahman (Former Advisor to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh and founder and Chairperson of the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC)), coordinated by Syed M. Hashemi (Director, BDI).

Naila Kabeer drew attention to the work of the Social Protection in Asia (SPA) programme, which has aimed to develop a research base and voice to advocate on behalf of innovative and informed policy on social protection issues. It has tried to identify lessons from a variety of initiatives, including, for example, India's NREGA and projects with the elderly in China. She pointed out that recent years have seen a growth in interest and talk around social protection.

Too often, the provision of safety-nets has been inadequate, leaving the family to shoulder the majority of welfare provision. This has been made more visible in the wake of economic crises which place further strains on families. In places, such crises have served to kick-start or set the pace for the establishment of some longer

term social protection infrastructure (e.g. in Indonesia following the '97/'98 Asian financial crisis).

Nevertheless, despite the gains made in raising the profile of the importance for social protection in policy circles, there is still a significant amount to be learnt about how to deal with vulnerability and ensure long-term investment in social protection. In Kabeer's view, there is still some way to go in moving towards a situation where social protection is comprehensive, inclusive and institutionalised, or one where social protection “is development policy” states Zillur Rahman. In other words, where the state takes responsibility.

So what are the barriers to the state taking the responsibility to provide comprehensive and inclusive social protection? Change needs to get underway. Lessons from the SPA programme throughout Asia suggest that:

We (including the state) need to move from looking at poor and vulnerable individuals precisely as that;

There needs to be a shift from a framework which sees people as vulnerable individuals to a society of resources and capable citizens. We need to invest in ways which don't undermine people.

The tendency to react to crisis by implementing programmes in a knee-jerk nature has left a string of different kinds of interventions, but how do we make sure no-one falls through the cracks? The homeless, the urban poor, or migrant women, for example? We need a force which pulls them up and includes them. The state needs capacity and a mandate to do this.

Yet, there still remains the big question of what exactly makes the state responsive?

Under what circumstances do governments take on the institutional responsibility for social protection?

Historical analysis shows that there are moments in history where states are galvanised into action. For example, turning 100 days of employment into a right in India

(the NREGA) was a culmination of an ongoing movement for farmers (alongside growing suicide among rural farmers) and an election. Kabeer argued that critical moments and events such as drought and floods all matter.

Civil society plays a significant and important role in laying the path for institutionalised social protection. In Bangladesh, NGOs house the large responsibility for service provision. But the question of accountability still remains. The role of civil society was highlighted as important, but not as the main provider.

Rahman also highlighted the level of innovation and diverse portfolio of social protection initiatives in Bangladesh, and

confirmed the importance of events (e.g. micro-credit being born in the wake of a famine). While he also cautioned that new risks are continually arising, particularly those presented by urban poverty and health issues. He raised an important point when discussing the social and physiological impacts of poverty and disaster, e.g. what are the psychological costs to those affected by the monga?

Kabeer drew attention to how much we take for granted the work of the people physically running social protection schemes on the ground. Local level workers are at the interface between the state and citizen and it is they who make the difference to whether an approach respects beneficiaries as citizens (ensuring entitlements) or as beggars (providing handouts). As such, she argued that more recognition and investment is needed towards these human resources of social protection.

So, to move towards a policy framework which institutionalises social protection from one which responds in an ad hoc way, is Bangladesh heading in the right direction? What kinds of moments or events need to happen here? Would comprehensive and inclusive social protection ideally ensure that the extreme poor no longer fall through the cracks?

Zillur Rahman highlighted that state resources remain a central and pivotal constraint. Raising the question of longterm responsibility and highlighting important events and moments as potential opportunities to influence seems valuable.

Hannah Marsden is working with shiree. Hannah@shiree.org