Social Protection Programs: Review and Comparative Analysis of Pakistan and Bangladesh

Abstract

Social protection programs are the crucial piece of pie for less developing countries because of their higher rate of poverty, inequality, vulnerability among the population and financial crises at the state level. This paper provides the review of social protection programs and their comparison between Pakistan and Bangladesh. It identifies that Pakistan has almost seventy social protection schemes while Bangladesh has more than one hundred and four. Bangladesh has made tremendous progress towards the reduction of poverty which declined significantly from seventy one percent (1974) to 18.6% (2022) by using social protection programs. While Pakistan is at rapid increase of poverty which remained 39.7% in 2022.  This study uses the indexes social protection programs and their channels and presents the graphical view for comparison. Graphical representation provides the clear evidence of sharp rise in the expenditures of social protection programs in Bangladesh as compared to the Pakistan during 1984-2020. Bangladesh administrative structure and homogenous cultural society plays a significant role for the successful implementation of welfare plans. However, Prominent reasons of Pakistan for being lagged behind are lack of planning for its social sector development, structural transformation and human development.