Mansoob Murshed gives lecture on health care spending in Bangladesh

In a lecture given during the Political Economy of Social Protection seminar at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development on 7 April 2016, ISS professor Mansoob Murshed discussed the low level of spending by Bangladesh on health care services as part of its social protection expenditure.

He argued that Rwanda, a relatively poor country, spends more on social protection programmes such as health care than Bangladesh.

He said social protection can not only lead to a reduction in poverty, but can also provide avenues for reducing inequality, both by redistributing income and by enabling publicly-funded health and education programmes that enhance growth and lower long-term inequality.

"Social protection includes social insurance payments (pensions, unemployment benefits, labour protection schemes) that are contingent on certain events, measures to reduce poverty (such as food aid conditional on school attendance, public works programmes), and arguably also public expenditure on health and education," he said.