No attention paid to Brazilian embassy offer: government not keen on social safety projects

Despite its tall claims to bolster social safety net in the country, the government is not paying due attention to an offer made by Brazilian embassy which is keen to provide its expertise in the field, it is learnt.
Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the Brazilian Embassy in Islamabad has written a letter to Shanaz Wazir Ali, special assistant to prime minister on social sector, offering assistance for social sector, but no response has been received despite lapse of two months.
"This shows purely non-serious behaviour of the concerned Pakistani authorities. In the present scenario, when the finance ministry has nothing to release for social safety projects like Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), the offer made by the Brazilian Embassy should not have been overlooked", a social sector expert said.
The offer was made by Brazilian Ministry of External Relations on behalf of the National Council on Food and Nutritional Safety of the Presidency of the Republic (CONSEA), Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger, Ministry of Agrarian Development and the National Food Supply Company of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries to Pakistani authorities.
Brazilian zero-hunger programme has been declared a successful social safety net programme. They have linked the income support with enrolment of children in schools. If a child drops out of school, his family is no more entitled for the income support offered by the government.
The continuing macro-economic crisis in the country and the global economic slowdown necessitate making "social protection" an urgent priority for better service delivery to the poor and vulnerable segments of society. Although the government had launched BISP in July 2008 with an immediate objective to cushion the negative effects of food crisis and inflation on poor, particularly women, through the provision of cash transfers of Rs 1000 per month to deserving families, it still needs to do more, social sector experts said.
During the first nine months of 2010-11, finance ministry released Rs 32.5 billion for BISP, against budgetary target of Rs 50 billion under financial constrains.
When contacted, Shahnaz refused to share information in this regard, claiming that she is not dealing with this particular issue. However, she was quick to acknowledge the letters written to her by Brazilian Embassy. At the time of approval of $7.6 billion loan under stand-by arrangement programme, IMF issued a statement on November 24, 2008. The statement clearly showed that to expand social safety net in Pakistan to protect the poor was one of the basic conditions of IMF.
The statement said, "The IMF's Executive Board has approved a $7.6 billion loan for Pakistan to support its program to stabilise and rebuild the economy while expanding its social safety net to protect the poor. The reduction in expenditures will create room to increase spending on the social safety net. Expenditure on the social safety net will be increased to protect the poor".