BISP - Pakistan’s Unique Social Safety Net Model
Integrated Package of Services and Support for the
Family
(Nouman Ghani)
May 30, 2013
1. BISP – Flagship Social Safety Net Program
 Established in July 2008, BISP is the national
flagship social safety net programme of the
Government of Pakistan (BISP Act, 2010)
 Compared to existing public sector safety nets
(Zakat and Bait-ul-Maal), BISP is much larger in
size and employs a scientific targeting system for
beneficiary identification and provision of
“targeted subsidies”
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1. BISP – Flagship Social Safety Net Program
 BISP established, as a response against rising
prices of food and fuel enabling poor families to
maintain essential consumption patterns.
 Provides a safety net to the bottom 20%
population of Pakistan.
 BISP is providing 3 type of benefits:
I. Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT)
II. Co-responsibility Cash Transfer (CCT)
III. Graduating Initiatives/Interventions
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2. BISP’s Unique Features
▪ Largest in Terms of Outreach, Targeting, Use of Technology and
Innovation
▪ One Roof One Window Operation
▪ Robust Program Design, Policy Development,
Coordination – Implementation by Partners
and Effective
▪ Holistic Program Approach to Address Family Needs
▪ Good Governance through:
1. Program, Financial, and Human Resource Management.
2. Cost Efficient Service Delivery
3. Sustainability
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3. Key Impact of Model Cash Transfer
▪ Best practices around the world suggest that a model Cash Transfer
program may have following comprehensive impacts
Social
Assistance
Economic
Inclusion
Cash
transfer
Health and
Social Security
Human Capital
Investment
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4. BISP – Cash Transfers
I. Unconditional Cash Transfer
a) Rs 1000/month per Beneficiary
b) Eligibility criterion is a Poverty Score of 16.17 on BISP’s Poverty
Score Card Survey & CNIC
c) Women of the house is the recipient for all BISP transfers
d) No other conditions attached
II. Co-Responsibility Cash Transfer(Waseela-e-Taleem)
a) Children of the beneficiary families aged 5-12 year will be
supported for primary school enrollment
b) Cash transfer of Rs. 200 /child (up-to a maximum of three
children) subject to compliance with the minimum 70%
school attendance.
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4. BISP – Graduating Initiatives/Interventions
1. Micro Credit Loan: Long-term interest-free financial assistance of
Rs.300,000, along with basic training & counseling, is given to
randomly selected beneficiaries for small businesses.
2. Technical and Vocational Skills Training: Demand driven, free
of cost, technical & vocational training 4-6 of is offered to one
individual per beneficiary family. Rs. 6000/month is paid in stipend
and logistics
3. Group Life & Health Insurance):
Life insurance cover of Rs. 100,000 for the bread winners of
recipient families.
Health Insurance providing Full hospitalization, pregnancy care,
diagnostic tests, and accident compensation for earning members
of the family to a maximum limit of Rupees 25,000/- per family per
year is being piloted in District Faisalabad.
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5. BISP – Critical Design Elements
▪ Proxy Mean Test based targeting survey throughout Pakistan with following features:
▪ Identifies 7.2 million households who are living below cut-off score of 16.17
▪ Results in creation of a large and reliable national registry of socio-economic status
of around 27 million households across Pakistan
▪ First ever census of its kind in South Asia
▪ Use of GPS devices to map the data of the entire country for informed decision
making (to cope with natural disasters and other emergencies)
▪ Cut-off score of 16.7 is not representing a poverty line. However, this cut-off was
decided on the basis of available fiscal space.
▪ Payment of Cash through Innovative Payment Mechanisms including Pakistan Post, Debit
Card and Mobile phone Banking
▪ A state of the art Case Management System is functional at Tehsil level (540 Tehsil)
▪ Most complaints, e.g. information updates etc. are resolved at Tehsil level.
▪ Daily complaint logs are generated, recorded and managed.
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6. BISP – Monitoring and Evaluation
▪ Internal Monitoring and Progress Reporting: BISP is doing internal monitoring through
its broad network of Tehsil/District/Regional Offices across Pakistan.
▪ ATOM (S curves) and Dash Board
▪ Rigorous External Evaluations are built into the design of BISP. BISP contracted third
parties to conduct a validation of various procedures relating to the scorecard implementation
▪ Spot Check
▪ Process Evaluation, and
▪ Impact Evaluation
▪ The Spot check assignment found out that the overall coverage of BISP’s targeting survey
at national level is 93% and the magnitude of difference in the poverty score across the two
surveys (i.e. national roll out of poverty survey and spot check representative survey) is
small.
▪ The Process evaluation interim results show that almost 85 % of the processes were
followed for all the activities completed under poverty scorecard survey.
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6. BISP – Monitoring and Evaluation
Impact Evaluation
▪ BISP is conducting an Impact Evaluation Study to evaluate the impact of the
BISP against a set of key impact indicators
▪ The Baseline Study was completed in July 2011. Some of the critical
characteristics found in baseline include:
•
•
•
•
BISP beneficiary households are very poor, with an average per adult monthly
equivalent consumption expenditure of just PKR 1,601 (16 US $)
This translates to individuals within BISP beneficiary households living on less than
US$ 1 Per day
Children living in BISP eligible households exhibit higher rates of malnourishment
than the national average
Many women/intended beneficiaries not able to participate in some key decisions
related to the household, particularly those related to money
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6. BISP – Monitoring and Evaluation
Impact Evaluation
• BISP has played a major role in promoting women’s uptake of CNICs
• BISP households have poor education outcomes, with net enrolment
rates of 25% compared to 55% nationally (PSLM 07/08)
• BISP households have poor health outcomes:
a) Only 64% of 12-23 month olds are fully immunised compared
b)
to 81% nationally (PSLM 10/11)
Only 81% of diarrhoea cases for children under 5 years were
consulted compared to 91% nationally (PSLM 10/11)
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7. BISP – A Road Ahead
▪ BISP is moving from Unconditional Cash Transfers
(UCT) to Co-Responsibility Cash Transfers (CCT)
▪ More
‘Evaluations”
of
BISP
initiatives/interventions are planned
Graduating
▪ Working with research organization to generating
evidence to make informed decisions about nutrition
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8. BISP- A Model Social Safety Net
BISP has achieved international recognition due to its
technology based and transparent systems.
The UN Secretary General, World Bank, US government, British
government through DFID have all appreciated BISP’s performance
and have provided financial and technical support to BISP.
BISP is being researched widely around the world as an example
of model safety net - a number of research studies available at
BISP Website www.bisp.org
THANKS
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