�Reduced health, edn allocation may hinder development�
UNB
The Unnayan Onneshan (UO), an independent multidisciplinary think tank, in its post-budget issue of monthly Bangladesh Economic Update reveals that declining allocation for health and education is likely to hinder the achievement of the countrys development targets, reports UNB.
The UO in its monthly publication notes that expenditure on health and education in Bangladesh is quite low vis--vis other developing countries. Allocation for non-development expenditure on both sectors comprises the large portion of the total allocation resulting in inadequate allocation for development expenditure.
In addition, poor implementation status of Annual Development Programme (ADP) in the Ministry of Health and Family Planning and the Ministry of Education poses challenge to the development of these two sectors.
In view of the current challenges in the development of health and education sectors, the think tank finds three major issues that characterize the two sectors. These are - structural inequality emanating from socioeconomic differentials, lack of universal coverage in the provision of social services, and social inequality due to citizens lack of access to social services. The research organisation says that Bangladesh lags behind other developing countries in accumulating public spending adequately to provide its citizens with necessary social services while the allocations for social sectors, particularly education and health, as percentage of total programme expenditure have been on the decline in recent years.
Statistics suggest that for education and technology, the budget allocation has declined by 1.5 percentage point and been proposed as 11.6 per cent of the total budget outlay in FY 2015-16 compared to 13.1 per cent in FY 2014-15. Allocation for health also declined by 0.1 percentage point from 4.4 per cent of the total budget in FY 2014-15 to 4.3 per cent in FY 2015-16.
The think tank finds that Bangladesh lags behind other developing countries in regard to health expenditure as percentage of GDP. In 2013, the actual allocation for health in Bangladesh stood at only 3.7 per cent, whereas it was 4 per cent in India, 6 per cent in Vietnam, 6 per cent in Nepal, 7.5 per cent in Cambodia, and 10.8 per cent in Maldives.
Consequently the per capita health expenditure is also quite low in Bangladesh vis--vis the other developing economies. For instance, the per capita health expenditure in Bangladesh stood at USD 32 while it was USD 61 in India, USD 111 in Vietnam, USD 39 in Nepal, USD 76 in Cambodia, and USD 720 in Maldives.
The UO further demonstrates that the out-of-pocket health expenditure as percentage of private expenditure on health is much higher in Bangladesh than in other developing countries. In 2013, the out-of-pocket health expenditure as percentage of private expenditure on health was 93 per cent in Bangladesh compared to 85.9 per cent in India, 85 per cent in Vietnam, 81.4 per cent in Nepal, 75.1 per cent in Cambodia, and 88.3 per cent in Maldives.
The research organisation evinces that in 2013, the public spending stood at 32.21 per cent of GDP in the developing and emerging economies, whereas Bangladesh accumulated only 16.79 per cent of its GDP as public spending. The volume of public spending is far lower in Bangladesh than in its two neighboring countries - India and Myanmar, whose public spending as percentage of GDP reached 27.26 per cent and 27.18 per cent respectively in 2013. Statistics suggest that the actual allocations as percentage of the total programme expenditure for education and technology were 17.1 per cent, 16.9 per cent, 18.6 per cent, 18.4 per cent, 16.6 per cent, and 16.1 per cent in FY08, FY09, FY10, FY11, FY12, and FY13 respectively. In FY14, the revised allocation stood at 16.3 per cent, whereas in FY15, the budgeted allocation stood at 15.6 per cent.
