World Bank approves US$ 150 million additional loan for Benazir Income Support Programme

World Bank approves US$ 150 million additional loan for Benazir Income Support Programme

World Bank on Wednesday approved an additional loan of US$ 150 million for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to expand the social safety net coverage and upgrade the status of programme to satisfactory.

According to a survey report, four out of every ten eligible families are deprived of the monthly cash grants due to resource constraints and procedural formalities.

The additional funds from the Washington-based lending agency would expand BISP’s coverage from the existing 3.6 million to at least 5.5 million households.

The World Bank Country Director for Pakistan Rachid Benmessaoud said that the project will help the PPP government in evolving the programme from basic cash transfers to a more integrated national safety net system.

“The government of Pakistan is committed to establish an effective social safety net platform for a well coordinated, effective, and efficient support to the poor families,” said Rachid Benmessaoud speaking to the media reporters on Thursday.

 “The project will build on the achievements of BISP in establishing objective targeting system and use of modern technology and third party evaluations for program administration,” he added further.

The loan would help finance the increase in coverage of basic cash grants, introducing co-responsibility cash transfers linked to primary education of beneficiaries’ children and strengthening operations and management systems within the BISP, said the World
Bank.

“The introduction of co-responsibility cash transfers under the Waseela-e-Taleem programme will help beneficiary families enroll and ensure school attendance of their children aged between five and 12,” said co-team leader of the project, Iftikhar Malik.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=15080

Posted by Asma Rafique on Mar 8 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry