BISP performance brings $ 794 million Foreign Exchange for Pakistan

BISP the premier social safety net is not only catering to the wellbeing of the 5.4 million vulnerable women across Pakistan but has also earned $794 million foreign exchange for Pakistan through its performance.

This foreign exchange came from the development partners World Bank, DFID and Asian Development Bank (ADB) from 2013-2017 after BISP met all the Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) related to enhanced coverage of Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), targeting communication, outreach, governance and management.

BISP has shown an exceptional performance and over achieved all the DLIs upon which rating of BISP by World Bank and DFID have significantly improved. DFID has rated BISP as A and World Bank (WB) upgraded its ranking from satisfactory to highly satisfactory due to effective service delivery and transparency.

The first DLI was related to the enhanced coverage of BISP in order to ensure universal coverage of basic cash transfer for all eligible beneficiaries. Under this BISP met all the DLIs by increasing the number of beneficiaries from 3.5 million in FY 2011/12 to 5.4 million in FY 2015/16.

BISP over achieved the targets of key indicator on introduction of co-responsibilities for families with primary aged children benefiting from UCT to promote primary education.  As per this DLI, BISP had to enroll 0.5 million but BISP has over achieved this target by enrolling 1.7 million children into primary schools.

BISP’s performance on targeting, communication and outreach strategy remained commendable. It devised a technology based update and grievance system to address complaints, updates and appeals related to WeT that has resolved more than 70% complaints on average.

It developed a comprehensive social mobilization plan to make its beneficiaries understand the attendance compliance requirements & benefits of the programme, chalked a Cash Transfer Beneficiary Outreach Strategy and operationalized the pilot phase of new survey by June 30, 2016.

The development partners have shown high satisfaction on enhanced governance and management systems to strengthen transparency and accountability by BISP.  To ensure transparency, BISP publicized the Poverty Score Card data and shared data sharing protocols for public and private entities on its website. It converted more than 90% payments to its beneficiaries through technology based mechanism like smart card, debit card and phone based payments.