To Provide Technical Support to Design a Universal Child benefit Programme for Bangladesh

Maxwell Stamp provided support to the consultants to collect, analyze and present information from desk review and from qualitative interviews with key stakeholders in Bangladesh. Based on findings of the desk review qualitative tools were developed in order to ensure that the factors identified in the desk review were studied during field mission to Bangladesh. MSL conducted a stakeholder analysis, including interviews with concerned policy makers and information managers for better understanding of structure of current programmes, challenges and opportunities, explored different policy options for the government. The UCBP considered a design that covered all children 0-5 years and provided incentives to both households and service providers to enhance children outcomes. MSL particularly:

• Carried out a desk-review of successful UCBP implemented in different countries. Special focus is put on developing countries;
• conducted a scoping mission to Bangladesh to meet key stakeholders i.e. Cabinet Division, MoWCA, FD and relevant ministries and development partners in order to understand the current child benefit/ grant programmes, identify challenges and explore policy options for a UCBP;
• prepared a policy brief for submission to the government taking in to account all types of audience including cabinet division, Finance Division,sectoral ministries ,other development partners such as World Bank, EU, DFID etc. The policy brief will contain feasibility and scalability of a UCBP and policy options;
• developed the architecture of a 5 years UCBP and clearly outline the different stages/phases from the initial stage to the evaluation stage;
• defined a six-month plan to support setup, rollout and initial stage of implementation of the programme;
• recommended UNICEF on how to support the cabinet division and finance division to develop a programme that could be piloted;
• mapped the best way in which development partners should be engaged to support Cabinet Division and Finance Division in this endeavor.