Are Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh Climate Responsive?

Abstract

Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world as a result of climate change (Bastagli and Holmes, 2014; Chowdhury, 2012; Martin et al., 2013). Several reports indicate that the situation will aggravate more in near future and will cause severe vulnerabilities to the lives and livelihoods. A growing number of literatures have emphasised on integrating Social Safety Net Programmes (SSNPs) with Disaster Risk Management (DRM) framework to develop exante and expost measures for the people affected by climate change. The main focus of the paper is to analyse whether SSNPs in Bangladesh are climate responsive? The analysis of the existing SSNPs reveals that the focus on short-term relief and other limited-scale cash/in-kind transfers have not contributed to the creation of sustainable livelihood support for the community and households at the rural level. The programmes address some expost vulnerabilities on short-term basis. There is no linkage between the SSNPs and DRM framework.