The poor of the country are not being effectively benefited from public expenditures made for secondary and tertiary education, upazila health clinics, and water supply system, according to a recent study report.
The study report titled 'Linking Research with Development Policy in Bangladesh: Public Expenditure in Social Sector' was presented at a national interface meeting of government and non-government policy stakeholders on Sunday.
Mahfuz Kabir, a senior research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, presented the findings of the study conducted by the Unnayan Shamannay, a civil society think-tank.
The study aimed at estimating the distribution of the public spending in three major social sectors – education, health service delivery, and water supply – and to track the nature of distribution of the public expenditure, dividing the society into five income groups.
The study has found that 80 per cent people of the society receive the benefits of only 49.69 per cent of the public expenditures made in these sectors, with the highest income group getting the rest.
Similarly, the lowest income group gets the benefits of 10.59 per cent of the total public expenditures made for secondary education, while the highest income group gets 28 per cent.
The study, however, has found the primary education system as more pro-poor, because the lowest income group of the society gets the benefits of 25 per cent of the total spending made in the sub-sector, while the highest income group gets about 15 per cent.
The study also reveals that the poor living in the 101 of the country's 257 municipalities, where there is piped water distribution system, do not have access to the water, although the government provides 30 per cent of the total water distributed through pipelines free and meant for the poor.
According to the study, the two lowest income groups or 40 per cent of the population get 33.45 per cent of the total subsidy given in public expenditures in hospitals, while the highest income group gets 25 per cent of it.
The study, however, has found the public expenditures on preventive healthcare fairly pro-poor as the lowest income group receives 27.74 per cent of the government's subsidy given in the sector, while the highest income group gets 15 per cent, although the rich rarely visit the public healthcare centres to get preventive treatments.
According to the study findings, the community clinic system, maternal and child care in particular, is more cost effective than that of the upazila health clinics or BRAC's Essential Health Care programme.
The study has recommended that the government should make public expenditures for secondary and, especially, tertiary education more pro-poor, try to make hospitals more accessible for the poor, and improve the quality of service delivery by public hospitals.
It also has recommended that the government should bring the poor, particularly the slum-dwellers, within the piped water distribution coverage and make alternative sources of safe water available in the areas where tube-well water is contaminated by arsenic.
Source : New Age
