How to improve beneficiary targeting in social protection programmes?

It is widely acknowled-ged that Bangladesh has been successful in making impressive gains in poverty reduction in the past years. Nevertheless, at the end of 2019, there were still about 16.5 million people categorised as extreme poor. This number has gone up substantially since mid-2020, due to the onslaught of Covid-19 pandemic. The sheer number of extreme poor in the country is no doubt a cause for concern. As the Covid-19 crisis was unfolding in early 2020, the government undertook a variety of measures such as cash and food distribution for the new poor. These were supported by the existing social protection (also called social safety net, social transfer or social security) programmes which are aimed at reducing the social and economic risks of the poor families.