Modernizing Bangladesh's social protection system: Priorities for greater effectiveness, inclusion, and resilience
Bangladesh has made substantial progress in reducing poverty and improving human development, with social protection playing an important role in protecting vulnerable households and strengthening human capital. The Government has demonstrated a strong commitment to social protection, particularly through the adoption of the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) in 2015 and subsequent efforts to streamline and consolidate programs. Despite this progress, the social protection system faces significant challenges. It remains fragmented across numerous programs and ministries; targeting errors continue to exclude many vulnerable households while including others with less need; and benefit levels are often insufficient to provide meaningful protection against poverty, vulnerability, and shocks. A substantial share of social protection spending is also allocated to programs that do not primarily benefit the poor, while many vulnerable households remain inadequately covered. Addressing these gaps is becoming increasingly important as Bangladesh confronts rising living costs, slower economic growth, widening inequalities, and more frequent economic and climate-related shocks. Bangladesh now has an opportunity to modernize its social protection system around a more coherent, lifecycle- and vulnerability-based framework. Social protection should move beyond a narrow focus on poverty reduction to address risks and vulnerabilities across the lifecycle— including maternal and early childhood needs; nutritional and educational deprivation among school-age children; employment risks during the working years; disability; and income insecurity in old age. Investments in early childhood, particularly during the first 1,000 days of life, can yield substantial long-term benefits for nutrition, health, learning, and productivity. The system should respond more effectively to rising inequality, urban vulnerability, population ageing, and health-related shocks. This will require strengthening social assistance while progressively developing complementary social insurance mechanisms, including unemployment protection, employment injury insurance, maternity benefits, health protection, and contributory pension schemes. Overall, Bangladesh’s next phase of social protection reform should focus not simply on spending more, but on spending smarter—building a coherent, inclusive, adequate, life-cycle-oriented, and shock-responsive system that protects households from both persistent poverty and emerging vulnerabilities.
Authors
Ahmed, Akhter; Anowar, Md Sadat
Citation
Ahmed, Akhter; and Anowar, Md Sadat. 2026. Modernizing Bangladesh's social protection system: Priorities for greater effectiveness, inclusion, and resilience. IFPRI Policy Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183784
Country/Region
Bangladesh
Keywords
Asia; Southern Asia; Social Protection; Modernization; Policies; Public Expenditure; Targeting
