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MNREGA world's largest public works programme: World Bank
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - 23:25
MNREGA world's largest public works programme: World Bank | Zee News
Washington: India's rural employment guarantee programmeMNREGA has been ranked as the world's largest public works programme, providing social security net to almost 15 per cent of the country's population, the World Bank has said.
India is among the five middle-income countries running the world's largest social safety net programmes, said a World Bank Group's report 'The State of Social Safety Nets 2015'.
"The world's five largest social safety net programmes are all in middle-income countries (China, India, South Africa and Ethiopia) and reach over 526 million people," it added.
The combined spending on social safety nets in 120 developing countries amounted to about USD 329 billion between 2010 and 2014, it said.
But, the report said, three quarters of the poorest people in low-and lower-middle income countries, and more than one-third of the poorest people in middle-income countries, lack safety net coverage and remain at risk.
India's Mid-day meal scheme has been classified as biggest school feeding programme benefiting 105 million beneficiaries.
The top honours for public works programme went to MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act) with 182 million beneficiaries or 15 per cent of India's population.
The World Bank ranked the Janani Suraksha Yojna with 78 million beneficiaries as the top-most social security programme with conditional cash transfers.
Also, it ranked the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme as the second-largest unconditional cash transfer social security progamme in the world.
Initiatives such as the Unique Identification (UID) hold the potential of improving coverage, implementation, and coordination across programmes in the future, it said.
In addition, there are many state-level initiatives aimed at increasing performance of social protection programmes utilising information technology and innovations.
The report follows the recent joint statement by the heads of the World Bank Group and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), endorsing the goal of universal access to social protection -- including safety nets -- by 2030.
"The World Bank Group and the ILO share a vision of social protection for all, a world where anyone who needs social protection can access it at any time," said Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President and Guy Ryder, Executive Director, ILO, in their joint statement.
The Group's Senior Director for Social Protection and Labor Arup Banerji said more countries at all income levels are investing in social safety net programs because they are transformational.
"There is strong body of evidence that these programmes ensure poor families can invest in the health and education of their children, improve their productivity, and cope with shocks," he said.
The report further stressed on the need to improve the efficiency of social safety net programmes by strengthening countries? capacity to target, integrate, administer, and evaluate social protection programmes, such as social and beneficiary registries.
Well-designed programs are cost-effective, costing countries only between 1.5 per cent and 1.9 per cent of GDP far less than most government spending on fuel subsidies.
It also said that the safety net programmes must be more efficient and effective to close the coverage gap.
The Third Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa next week is an opportunity to ensure that the international community has the means to make the goal of universal access to social protection - including safety nets- by 2030 -- a reality.
PTI
India has cut poverty by half, but progress is uneven: UN
Country still home to over a third of the world’s underweight children, says Millennium Development Goals report
NEW DELHI, JULY 7: As the deadline for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draws to a close in September, a UN report has commended India for reducing poverty by half (from 45.3 per cent to 21.9 per cent till 2011-12).
This was attributed to economic growth as well as higher social spending on interventions such as MGNREGA (rural job guarantee scheme) and the National Rural Health Mission. However, it pointed out that this progress was “uneven.”
Poverty scenario
“Over 270 million Indians in 2012 still remain trapped in extreme poverty (living less than $1.25/day) making the post-2015 goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 challenging, but feasible,” said ‘The MDG report 2015’, released here on Tuesday by NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy. The report is the last in the series of MDG reports till new goals are set by the UN General Assembly in September.
Policy correction
According to the report, India made “notable progress” towards reaching the MDGs, but is still home to “one quarter of the world’s under-nourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people.”
Calling for policy correction to correct growing disparities, it said “the incidence of poverty in rural India is twice that of urban areas, and higher among excluded groups –Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled castes, female-headed households, and religious minorities, such as Muslims.”
At a time when the NDA government is under fire from the Opposition for cutting social sector allocations by half, the UN report calls for widening of poverty alleviation schemes, such as MGNREGA and food security in poorer States, improvements in the Integrated Child Development Services and Public Distribution System and speedy execution of the National Food Security Act, among others.
On the positive side, the report said that apart from the goal of reducing poverty, India has also made progress in achieving gender parity in primary school enrolment, reversing the spread of diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and has eradicated polio. Notably, India has also halved the proportion of population without access to clean drinking water.
However, reducing child and infant mortality (49 and 40 per 1,000 live births), improving maternal health (167 per 100,000 live births) access to sanitation (54.6 per cent), enrolment in primary education, environmental challenges and greater political participation by women are some “lagging indicators” where more effort will be required, it said, adding that “the goal of sustainable development cannot be achieved globally without India.”
Source:- India has cut poverty by half, but progress is uneven: UN | Business Line
Millennium Development Goals Report 2015: India on track in reducing poverty - The Hindu
They better rationalize this scheme fast
...... that must be the best state in India 
