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Monday, 22 October 2007
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General Moeen U Ahmed Sunday depicted the government's success stories such as a free judiciary and reforms to the Election Commission and Bangladesh Public Service Commission. In a speech to Bangladeshi expatriates at Holbrook in Boston, the army chief referred to the efforts to make a voter list with pictures. Moeen said: 'Many things may happen before the national elections in 2008.' The general came up with a fable.
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<< Report Type: Poverty  
  Report Name: Fighting Poverty in Rural Bangladesh  
  Price: BDT Tk. 125 USD $ 4

Millions of dollars of aid money have been spent over the last 30 years in the name of poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. Poverty alleviation has topped the priority lists of all the consecutive governments and all development programmes are, at least in rhetoric, dedicated to poverty alleviation.  Development partners also feel happy to tag poverty alleviation to any development project, be it for road, health, education, information communication technology and what not.

 

A rural woman talking to her farmer husband over mobile phone set was used as a commercial advertisement to enthral distinguished foreign guests about telecommunication's role in poverty alleviation. Does it speak the ground reality of Bangladesh? Have villages really graduated to such a state where women can afford to talk to her farm-labourer husband over mobile phone?

 

Surveys show that poverty reduced at a rate of 1 per cent a year in last one decade, when population maintained an average 1.5 per cent growth. Still 47 per cent people live below poverty line, while rich-poor gap kept widening. Inflation, which some economists feel not alarming yet, has got rural bias, as price spiral, especially food items, is more acute in villages than in towns. Even policymakers are now talking over equal distribution of wealth to offset the gap. Not poverty, rather inequity in distribution remains as the main problem in Bangladesh.

 

Maintaining life in villages has become difficult as cost of living does not match with earnings. Farmers do not get due prices for their produces. They sell paddy much below the production cost. Farming jute has appeared a foolish job as jute price has been slashed officially due to squeezing domestic market.  Agriculture still shares 25 per cent of GDP and remains as the main determinant for the country's economic growth. GDP growth prediction, made by World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), rides on the back of success in agriculture. High-growth forecasts will nosedive if a crop fails due to sudden weather variation.

 

Yet, lending agencies are dead against any subsidy in agriculture. Farmers pay higher price for inputs, excepting a small subsidy in fertiliser that government continues negating the advice from lending agencies. But they cannot sell their produces. They do not get due prices. There is no marketing support from any quarter. A middlemen culture has grown in agriculture marketing. Middlemen eat up the cream. Vegetables sell in cities at three times higher prices than that at grower level, but growers do not get it.  Farmers uphold the economy, saving faces of politicians and giving them chance for boasting of economic successes. But none is advocating for farmers. Manufacturing sector that shares a little in GDP, gets top priority and enjoys all policy incentives and supports. Tax cut, duty cut, cash incentives and so on are all preserved for manufacturers, a large section of whom are loan-defaulters. They dominate in the society and policymaking. They are widely consulted before budget preparation, and many of their demands are incorporated in the tax policy. But farmers' interests only remain alive in the speeches of politicians during election, not in practice. Farmers have little incentive to diversify crop and add value to farm produces. They do not have any marketing facilities. Prices of farm producing are soaring and intermediaries pocket the money.

 

There is no official registration of job seekers, but some estimates suggest that roughly 27 million people appear in the job market every year. While state-owned mills are being closed on the plea of concurrent losses, private sector is not strong enough to absorb the huge unemployed people.

 

Nevertheless, lending agencies are repeatedly appreciating Bangladesh's success in macro-economic management, mainly in taming budget deficit, cutting public expenditure, raising domestic revenue incomes and enhancing workers' remittance from abroad. They are forecasting a near-6 percent GDP growth this fiscal year, subjected to good crop production. They also cite successes in primary school enrolment and primary healthcare infrastructure up to grassroots level.

 

But what is the scenario in the ground, particularly in rural areas?  A random sampling would suggest that sense of security matters first to a man or woman in a village. Whatever he or she earns, he or she wants to take it home safely and have a safe sleep at home with members of his family, full-fed or half-fed. Then come the concerns for schooling of children, healthcare of the family as a whole.

 

Is life in village safe? Do the rural people have access to quality education and healthcare? Do they have access to justice? Do farmers get fair prices for their produces? Are agriculture inputs available in time and at comfortable prices? How is the rural employment situation?

 

Micro-credit operation has made Bangladesh popular and the model is being adorned and replicated in many countries. No doubt, it has established poor people's access to small credit without collateral. But does access to credit alone ensures self-reliance? How many of those who borrowed from micro finance institutions (MFIs) in last two decades have graduated from poverty?

 

World Bank and Asian Development Bank jointly made an assessment on Bangladesh's poverty and released a document in October 2002 on poverty trends and profile. The document says income poverty declined roughly 1 percent per year during the '90s. The number of very poor by only 2.7 million in the period while the poor remained more or less the same in number.

 

Poverty remained higher in rural areas than in urban areas (53 % and 37 % respectively). The highest incidence of poverty was detected in Rajshahi, 61 per cent and the lowest in Dhaka 45 per cent while the rate stagnated in Chittagong division.

 

It says that three-fifth of the poor population in Bangladesh own less than 0.05 acres of land. Incidence of poverty amongst the functionally landless is more than three times that of the population owning 2.5+ acres of land.

 

Nearly three-quarters of the poor population have an illiterate household head. Incidence of poverty amongst those with an illiterate head is eight times that of those with a head with higher education.


Getting back smuggled out wealth and money
British assistance offer welcome
The Anti-Corruption Commission's efforts to strike a deal with Scotland Yard to secure return of money and wealth stashed away abroad by suspected high profile corrupt Bangladeshis, with the famous law enforcement agency's help, have received an impetus. It came with British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury and Director for Asia at the UK fo
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