When truth is the first casualty of everyday life the cost of living becomes so high that even the pen has to lose its soul and produce pragmatic content. Maintaining one’s own sanity after realising that may be all of us have eventually become Dr. Faustus, becomes the prime challenge. Silence and solitude are regarded as some of the key sources to get solace with or without psychotherapy and medicines for alleviating anxiety, agitation and depression. Similarly, charity and compassion that are some of the greatest human values and virtues and are uncontested in all cultures and faith are also recognised anti-unhappiness. Pakistan and Pakistanis in spite of their several shortcomings are never short of benevolence. Welfare trusts like Edhi, Chippa, Silani and state of the art pro-poor hospitals like SIUT, SKMH,LRBT existing with many other smaller community based nonprofits and inspiring angel like professionals for instance Dr. Ruth, Molana Edhi, Mr.Geoffery Langlands Dr.Adeeb Rizvi to name a few along with many noted and unsung s/heroes are the jewels of our state and society both. The exemplary support of our army in humanitarian settings has always set a new standard of excellence. When a random act of kindness becomes an intervention it requires, besides passion the structured partnerships with governments, voluntary sector, citizen sector, technical and donor agencies. In the social development industry, there are many such examples. The Pakistan Social Safety Net Project (2009-17) by the World Bank constitutes one important example. The bank with its impressive and evolving history of social safety nets programmes supported the expansion and strengthening of Pakistan’s national safety net platform, known as Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). Direct cash transfers to women, by the BISP quite conspicuously contributed towards the financial assistance of poor women and women headed households if not the women empowerment in its entirety and became one of the largest social safety net systems in the South Asia. The PTI government launched on March 27, 2019, the Ehsaas programme that articulated government’s poverty reduction strategy in four pillars including; addressing elite capture and making the government system work to create equality; safety nets for disadvantaged segments of the population; and jobs and livelihoods. Ehsaas is envisioned to use data and technology to create precision safety nets; promoting financial inclusion and access to digital services; supporting the economic empowerment of women; focusing on the central role of human capital formation for poverty eradication, economic growth and sustainable development; and overcoming financial barriers to accessing health and post-secondary education. These tools are meant to meet the key objective of the programme that is to reduce inequality, invest in people, and lift lagging district and the creation of a ‘welfare state’ by countering elite capture and leveraging 21st century tools. Accessing the benefits of this programme must be ensured by establishing horizontal linkages with the targeted communities. Digitalisation and applications could create more exclusion. Weak multi-sectoral coordination and other gaps must be realistically identified and bridged through visible and apolitical stakeholders’ participation Recently the World Bank has recognised Pakistan’s government Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme among the top four social protection interventions globally in terms of number of people covered. As per World Bank’s latest report titled Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures, India’s programme with over 206 million individuals covered, is the largest Covid-related cash transfer scheme worldwide. Such programme is followed by three cash transfer interventions all reaching over a100 million people, namely the US first stimulus check (160 million), Japan’s one-off universal programme reaching about (116.5), and Pakistan’s Ehsaas (100.9). The report stated that Pakistan was also among the top 5 lower-middle-income countries by level of social protection spending. The highest level of spending in lower-middle-income countries is observed in Mongolia (8% of GDP), Zimbabwe (5%), Bolivia (3%), Pakistan (1.2%), and with a range of others spending 1% of GDP. Pakistan is reported to spend approximately $872 million on its emergency response. Out of this, $109 million went on additional support for the 4.5 million regular safety net beneficiaries and $763 million to 10.5 million new beneficiaries via the Ehsaas programme. Within such response, support from the Bank had only 3% of total government spending on the emergency response. Similarly, the Indian government’s first package of social protection assistance was about $23 billion, with nearly $1 billion supported by the Bank. While the opposition and treasury benches are engaged in establishing the origins of credit of the recognition it may be more worthwhile to take this moment as an opportunity for reviewing the programme with at least some honest and may be uncomfortable reflections. These could eventually lead to the much needed improvements imperative for the desired outcomes and transformative changes advocated by the UN’s 2030 agenda for its 3-dimensional (economy, environment and society) sustainable development . The programme that must be applauded for accomplishing many of its pre-determined milestones may be reexamined , with (more) empathy, intersectionality and inclusivity lenses. For instance, amongst the list of target beneficiaries divorced and disabled women and mothers and abandoned wives and single mothers with disabled children should be added where only widows and poor women (among women beneficiaries ) are mentioned. Similarly, trans people (whose only 3% has been benefitted so far) must be affirmed as the special attention group who must be approached with added thoughtfulness and given customised services. The programme should relate much more with the ground realities and access to its benefits must be ensured by establishing horizontal linkages with the targeted communities. Digitalisation and apps. could create more exclusion. Weak multi-sectoral coordination and other gaps must be realistically identified and bridged through visible and apolitical stakeholder’s participation. The breath ,depth and length of the programme gives impression of a parallel government with federal and provincial ministries and departments. Either this perception should be dispelled, or programme may be devolved. For instance, health and education related components may be led by the concerned departments to avoid covert tug of powers and control and overt confusions. The information about the programme should go beyond twitter and social media and must be mainstreamed through repeated information packages on the mass media. Transparency of the programme must be ensured by making pubic all the MoUs signed by the GoP with all donor agencies and implementing partners. The administrative costs including pays and perks of all team members, their capacity and recruitment process and declaration of no COI must be in the public knowledge. The narrative report about the performance must be made public in Urdu language as well, on quarterly basis and data must be gender disaggregated. If these are already existing and are public too, their easy searchability , access or availability on internet may be attended. Clarity on the differences between the terms like social protection that is a right rather than a reactive relief and temporary cushions -the social safety nets is required to be understood both at the community and policy making levels. These doable measure if taken would reflect well on the intention as well as the performance of the government. One critical question that should be asked from all duty bearers could be that Can Cash Transfer Programmes Have ‘Transformative’ Effects? This question has been raised in the literature for while discussing such programmes worldwide in the back drop of the structural adjustments by the bank. A personal favourite is an important research paper in 2016 furnished by Pakistani born world famous sociologist Prof. Maxine Molyneux along with her co-authors found that Cash transfers, for all their evident success in relieving poverty, have been criticised for failing to incorporate transformative elements into their programme design. Therefore, changes have been introduced into the design of such programmes to address the concern to some degree. Our think tanks, media legislators and influencers must build a larger narrative around this programme and unearth unadulterated reasons to celebrate such recognitions or concerns about cuts ( actual or potential) in investments on health, education, infrastructure and population development that should be the priorities for the progress of our nation. Any solution that creates more social inequalities and mental stress must be questioned unapologetically and should not be equated as bashing of any institution or individual. Recalling an old piece by an economic journalist late Henry Hazlitt may be worthwhile, and I quote an excerpt ; “The abundance of slaves created great and continuing unemployment. It checked the demand for free labor and for labor-saving devices. Independent farmers could not compete with the big slave-operated estates. In practically all productive lines, slave competition kept wages close to the subsistence level. Yet the dole became an integral part of the whole complex of economic causes that brought the eventual collapse of Roman civilisation.” I am neither an historian nor an economist so I really do not know what actually caused the fall of Roman empire and why even Julius Caesar could not end such practices. However, as someone who understands multidimensional poverty and humiliation experienced by people with no say in the society I would like to remind the rulers of our homeland that the elite capture cannot be countered without conforming all policy actions with three core values of human development namely self-esteem, ability to sustain and freedom to choose. Therefore, I dare to request that the forthright report by Prof.Philip Alston (UN Rapporteur 2014-2020) must be included as a mandatory reading for all members of the cabinet , concerned bureaucrats and commissioned evaluators of social programmes, besides all those who are associated with the SDG committees and secretariats both at the national and provincial levels to actually understand the “deceptively optimist narrative “about the world’s progress about poverty. The writer a free thinker, loves, Mevlana Rumi, founder of a non-funded think tank apna wallet, author of some books & reports and a gender &public health expert