Programme of Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh
CPRC has worked with the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies, and the Research Division of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, to study chronic poverty in Bangladesh.
Introduction to chronic poverty in Bangladesh
Following independence in 1971, Bangladesh – ravaged by war, natural disaster and destitution – was viewed in the international community as a ‘basket case’ that would remain dependent on foreign aid for the foreseeable future. Yet the country went on to achieve extraordinary improvements in social and economic development indicators, based on consistently high growth rates, some government success, particularly in large-scale infrastructural development, and concerted action by NGOs.
1970s Bangladesh was also populated by a significant cadre of young activists full of hope, energy and commitment to reconstruction and nation-building, and as the substantial challenges overwhelmed the new government, even with overseas assistance, small NGOs emerged to organize relief, rehabilitation, and eventually development. Today Bangladesh is host to many of the most well-respected and successful local NGOs and microfinancial institutions and models of alternative service delivery in the world.
So Bangladesh is by no means a basket case. However, the challenge of chronic poverty remains significant and pressing, and structural changes are required in order to put upward mobility on the agenda for tens of millions of Bangladeshis.
Chronic poverty in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a Least Developed Country (LDC) of approximately 150 million people. While Bangladesh’s Human Development Index (HDI) rank of 137th out of 177 countries largely reflects its position as a low income economy, with a per capita PPP GDP of US$1,870, since 2000 human development indicators have improved to such an extent that the country is now firmly in the lower echelons of medium human development (UNDP 2006). Bangladesh has already met one of the MDGs – gender parity in primary and secondary education – and is roughly on track to meet most of the others, including reducing US$1/day poverty by half (World Bank Dhaka 2007).
Yet inequality is rising, and around 40% – or 60 million people – remain poor according to national poverty line. About 25% live in extreme income poverty, and about 10% subsist on two meals or less for several months every year. Almost one-third of the rural population have suffered the indignity of chronic poverty for over a decade – low consumption, hunger, illiteracy, and lack of access to basic health and other services. While poverty remains particularly acute in rural areas, there is evidence of worsening extreme poverty, inequality and poor quality of life among the fast-growing urban population (Sen and Hulme 2006). The maternal mortality MDG will not be met – extremely limited public health systems mean that maternal mortality rates remain among the highest in the world (World Bank Dhaka 2007). It is clear that neither growth nor government and NGO interventions have reached a substantial proportion of the population.
A wide range of people suffer the persistent economic marginality and social exclusion that typify chronic poverty in Bangladesh – casual agricultural labourers and their household members; abandoned and widowed women and their offspring; older women and men without family support; those living in fragile environments such as chars (seasonal islands created by flooding); street children, scavengers and pavement dwellers in cities; sex workers; people of minority ethnic or religious status; people with physical and mental impairments; refugees; and many more – old and young, women and men, working and dependent, people living in remote rural hamlets and in the heart of Dhaka (Sen and Hulme 2006). While the threat of famine has been eradicated, and rice self-sufficiency reached, chronic and seasonal food insecurity and malnutrition are still common experiences for millions of Bangladeshis. And climate change threatens to exacerbate the weather shocks to which Bangladesh – particularly its poorest citizens – is so prone.
Policy and chronically poor people
While ‘development stakeholders’ have long been committed to poverty reduction in Bangladesh, there has been a recent shift in focus onto the poorest and chronically poor. For example, several national and international conferences and meetings have been hosted by national and international NGOs charged with refocusing their own, and government and donor agendas, onto the most marginalised groups (e.g. Conference on ‘What Works for the Poorest?’, co-hosted by CPRC, BRAC and BWPI, December 2006).
This shift has partly been in response to the evidence that even those government, donor and NGO interventions meant to target the poorest, while having remarkable outreach and helping to keep many millions of households afloat, have not succeeded in sufficiently improving the condition of households to push them out of extreme poverty.
Despite major operational and strategic challenges, several programmes have had some success (Barrientos and Holmes 2007):
- With support from donors and NGOs, the government runs the Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) and Income Generation for Vulnerable Group Development (IGVGD), since 1975 and 1987 respectively. These programmes provide in-kind food transfers to enable destitute rural women to improve their economic and social condition, along with a complementary package of development services including health and nutrition education, literacy training, savings, and support in launching income-earning activities.
- The government with support from donors runs three cash transfer schemes conditional on education that have had positive effects on enrolment and retention rates among poor children – especially rural girls: Cash for Education (2002+; originally Food for Education from 1993); Primary Education Stipend Project (2002+); and Female Secondary School Stipend (1994).
- The Food for Work programme (1975--) supported by donors provides wages in-kind to rural labourers for working in labour-intensive public works during the dry season as part of an integrated programme of rural development.
- Since 1997, the government has implemented an Old Age Allowance Scheme and Assistance Programme for Widowed and Destitute Women. Recipients chosen by local level committees are provided with a small cash transfer.
In 2002, the large NGO BRAC, with donor support, initiated a set of project experiments under the general heading ‘Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor’ (CFPR/TUP), building on its longstanding, extensive and successful microfinance, enterprise support and training, and health outreach programmes, as well as on its involvement with the IGVGD. Its recent performance demonstrates that the poorest people can be reached and, with a carefully sequenced set of programme components that include providing assets and involving the community, supported to a position in which they have a high probability of sustaining their enhanced levels of welfare and assets (Hulme and Moore 2007).
Policy documents such as the 2006 PRSP shows some evidence of disaggregating poverty, the poor and poverty interventions by space, gender, age, and depth of poverty (due to the participation of the Programme of Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh in its development; see below and Ali 2005), although chronic poverty is only mentioned in passing, and the overall effect of such disaggregation on policies effected is unclear.
As Bangladesh’s interim administration makes way for the return of democracy over the coming year, it is imperative that those interested in governing not only campaign on an anti-corruption platform, but on an anti-chronic poverty and pro-equity platform, and that they go on to implement the changes required for broad-based socio-economic change for the poorest.
CPRC’s work
From 2001-2006, CPRC worked closely with partners at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), located in Dhaka, on the Programme of Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh. This partnership sought to make efforts to reduce poverty in Bangladesh more effective by deepening the understanding of those who are chronically poor, of the processes that keep them in poverty, and of the policy measures that can help them to overcome poverty and vulnerability, and by sharing such policy-relevant research with government, donors and civil society.
The flagship PRCPB publication, The State of the Poorest 2005/2006: Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh – Tales of Ascent, Descent, Marginality and Persistence, examines what has been happening to the poorest people in Bangladesh over recent times. The report draws attention to significant ‘differences in development’, examining why some remain in poverty while others are able to escape it, and identifying the types of policy that can help the poorest escape deprivation and gain their full rights as citizens of an increasingly prosperous country. The report argues that while growth is essential if the poorest are to be helped out of poverty, the quality of growth is as important as the quantity of growth, and growth alone will not suffice. Public action, by the state, NGOs, communities and private citizens, is needed to reduce the livelihood insecurity that keeps poor people poor and drives the vulnerable into extreme poverty.
The poor and poorest need to be seen as capable and creative economic agents who are nonetheless constrained by a complex of deprivations and market and government failures. In addition to broad-based growth, specific and innovative interventions are required to permit the poorest to seize the opportunities of growth and build assets – educational access, health services and infrastructure – as well as enhancing the microfinance for which Bangladesh is famous. They also need support to reduce their vulnerability to shocks and crises – food security, social safety nets and risk mitigation measures – and modest pension and grant schemes for older and disabled people and others who are less economically active. Finally, efforts must be made to permit the poorest to achieve a minimum level of citizenship – e.g. better governance that improves law and order and strengthens the public accountability of state, market and civil institutions.
In 2006, PRCPB initiated a Rural Poverty Dynamics (RuPoD) Panel Survey in each of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, in order to better understand the nature, extent, causes and outcomes of persistent rural poverty. The first stage of RuPoD – a ‘census plus’ exercise and its initial analysis – has been completed (Ali et al 2006). This ‘census plus’ included a short census questionnaire issued to 17,287 households, a longer household questionnaire issued to 5,782 households, and a community questionnaire issued to key informants in each of 64 villages, as well as a schools questionnaires issued to two primary and two-four secondary schools per village. Based on initial analysis of household’s own views of food availability, the RuPoD census plus demonstrates that while there is some upward and downward mobility among both the poor and non-poor, the large majority of extremely poor rural households face a chronic condition, driven by a poor asset base, few earners, limited access to credit and infrastructure, and frequent composite shocks. The main panel survey is now underway, with a second wave planned in three years.
In 2006, a second major piece of work on chronic poverty in Bangladesh was initiated. The CPRC is collaborating with IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) and DATA (Data Analysis and Technical Assistance Ltd, Dhaka) on a project investigating ‘Do Development Interventions Permit Households to Escape Chronic Poverty? Evaluating the Long-Term Impact of Interventions in Bangladesh’. Three interventions in rural Bangladesh are considered: educational transfers, through the provision of food or cash for education (FFE/CFE) to poor families; (2) production-related interventions, through the introduction of new agricultural technologies; and (3) microfinance, through NGOs. Approximately 102 villages and 1787 households first surveyed by IFPRI in 1994, 1996 or 2000 are being revisited in 2006-07 to ascertain how their living standards have changed over the intervening period and which factors, institutions and processes have trapped certain households in chronic poverty while allowing others to escape from it. A unique feature of this study is that it combines both a long-term and comparative assessment of these interventions and mixed qualitative/quantitative methods. Read more…
Key CPRC Events
Do Development Interventions Permit Households to Escape Chronic Poverty? Evaluating the Long-Term Impact of Interventions in Bangladesh
8th April 2008, Dhaka
This joint CPRC, IFPRI and DATA research project was launched at a workshop in Dhaka. Click this link to read about the workshop and see media coverage.
What works for the poorest? knowledge, policies and practices
3rd - 5th December 2006
International conference, BRAC Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 3-5 December 2006.
Key CPRC publications
National Chronic Poverty Report
Sen, B. and Hulme, D. (eds.) (2006) Overview: The State of the Poorest 2005/2006: Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh – Tales of Ascent, Descent, Marginality and Persistence Dhaka/Manchester: PRCPB/Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, CPRC/University of Manchester.
Book
Hulme, D. and Moore, K. (2007) Assisting the poorest in Bangladesh: Learning from BRAC’s ‘Targeting the Ultra Poor’ Programme. In Barrientos, A. and Hulme, D. (eds.) Social protection for the poor and poorest. Forthcoming from Palgrave.
Working Papers
Matin, I., Sulaiman, M. and Rabbani, M. (2008) Crafting a graduation pathway for the ultra-poor: lessons and evidence from a BRAC programme, CPRC Working Paper 109.
Quisumbing, A. (2007) Poverty transitions, shocks and consumption in rural Bangladesh: preliminary results from a longitudinal household survey, CRPC Working Paper 105.
Hossain, N. (2007) The politics of what works: the case of the Vulnerable Group Development Programme in Bangladesh, CPRC Working Paper 92.
Ali, Z.; Begum, S.; Shahabuddin, Q. and Khan, M. (2006) Rural Poverty Dynamics 2005/2006: Evidence from 64-Village Census Plus. PRCPB Working Paper No. 17. Dhaka/Manchester: PRCPB/Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, CPRC/University of Manchester.
Research Summary
Moore, K. and Braunholtz-Speight, T. (2007) What Works for the Poorest? Knowledge, policies and practices, CPRC Research Summary 1.
Others
Barrientos, A. and Holmes, R. (2007) Social Assistance in Developing Countries Database. (Version 3.0 July 2007) Manchester: IDPM/CPRC.
Ali, Z. (2005) Getting Chronic Poverty onto Policy Agendas: Case Study on the Programme for Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh (PRCPB). London/Manchester: ODI/CPRC.
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