Equitable and Transparent Cash Disbursement under the BISP Program: An Analysis

Abstract

The Government of Pakistan launched BISP program to ensure merit based financial assistance to the deserving persons and at present it covers more than 9.3 million households under kafalat program. 1 The program provides financial assistance on a regular basis to families who are vulnerable to economic shocks and due to financial constraints are unable to support themselves. Based on pre-defined eligibility criteria the applicants are selected for the financial assistance and payments are made from the payment centers as well as from the biometric point of sale franchises of the partner banks. It has been observed that Pakistan has fragmented social protection landscape comprising of weakly coordinated overlapping programs. To address this issue One Window BISP Policy 2021 has been approved by the Prime Minister to ensure availability of all services related to BISP program in one space. However, despite all these efforts BISP program has its transparencies and equitability related challenges such as limited administrative capacity, absence of adequate monitoring and lack of evidence-based strategies to combat errors, fraud and corruption. To make this program more transparent it is required that safeguards like simple and cashless disbursement mechanisms, proper monitoring and an effective complaint resolution system must be introduced to enhance the effectiveness of the program.