Publication: Bangladesh Poverty Assessment: Facing Old and New Frontiers in Poverty Reduction
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2019-10-31
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2019-10-31
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Bangladesh has an inspiring story of reducing poverty and advancing development. Since 2000, the country has reduced poverty by half. In the last decade and a half, it lifted more than 25 million out of poverty. The country’s economy remained robust and resilient even in the face of many challenges. All sectors of the economy have contributed to poverty reduction. This has been accompanied by enhanced human capital, lower fertility rates and increased life expectancy, which have also significantly contributed to increase households’ ability to earn more and exit poverty. Yet, behind this progress, there are emerging contrasts. As the country is rapidly urbanizing, its rural and urban areas did not experience the same level of poverty reduction. The rural areas reduced poverty impressively, accounting for 90 percent of the poverty reduction since 2010. But, in urban areas, progress has been slower and extreme poverty has not decreased. The country’s higher economic growth in the last decade has not led to a faster poverty reduction. Specially, poverty has stagnated and even increased in the Western divisions while the Eastern divisions fared better. This report highlights the need for both traditional and fresh solutions. To end extreme poverty by the next decade, Bangladesh will need to continue to build on its successes, such as family planning, educational attainments, and growth in agriculture and manufacturing. But at the same time, it will need solutions to overcome new and re-emerging frontiers of poverty reduction.
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“World Bank. 2019. Bangladesh Poverty Assessment: Facing Old and New Frontiers in Poverty Reduction. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32754 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Bangladesh - Poverty Assessment for Bangladesh : Creating Opportunities and Bridging the East-West Divide(Washington, DC, 2008-10)Bangladesh represents a success story among developing countries. Poverty incidence, which was as high as 57 percent at the beginning of the 1990s, had declined to 49 percent in 2000. This trend accelerated subsequently, reducing the poverty headcount rate to 40 percent in 2005. The primary contributing factor was robust and stable economic growth along with no worsening of inequality. Respectable GDP growth that started at the beginning of the 1990s continued into the new millennium and averaged above 5 percent annually between 2000 and 2005. Inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient of consumption, remained stable between 2000 and 2005. Recent shocks to the Bangladeshi economy in the form of natural disasters and rising food prices have partially dampened the rapid progress in reducing poverty. The year 2007 saw two natural disasters, floods and a devastating cyclone within a few months of each other. Another significant shock has been the steep rise in food prices, including the main staple, rice, which has revealed the risk posed by global price volatility for a net food-importing country like Bangladesh. Estimates in this report suggest that the impact of the food price shock has likely negated some of the reduction in poverty brought about by economic growth between 2005 and 2008. Specific areas for policy focus which are elaborated in the report include measures to: (i) promote growth by sustaining increases in labor productivity and job creation in manufacturing and services; (ii) expand opportunities in lagging regions by improving connectivity with growth poles and investing in human capital; (iii) facilitate migration from poor areas given the poverty-reducing impact of remittances; (iv) stimulate women's participation in the labor force (v) sustain Bangladesh's past successes in reducing fertility; (vi) improve poor households access to and quality of education, health, and nutrition services; and (vii) strengthen the coordination, targeting, and coverage of safety net programs.Publication Bangladesh - Poverty Assessment for Bangladesh : Creating Opportunities and Bridging the East-West Divide(2008-10-21)Bangladesh represents a success story among developing countries. Poverty incidence, which was as high as 57 percent at the beginning of the 1990s, had declined to 49 percent in 2000. This trend accelerated subsequently, reducing the poverty headcount rate to 40 percent in 2005. The primary contributing factor was robust and stable economic growth along with no worsening of inequality. Respectable GDP growth that started at the beginning of the 1990s continued into the new millennium and averaged above 5 percent annually between 2000 and 2005. Inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient of consumption, remained stable between 2000 and 2005. Recent shocks to the Bangladeshi economy in the form of natural disasters and rising food prices have partially dampened the rapid progress in reducing poverty. The year 2007 saw two natural disasters, floods and a devastating cyclone within a few months of each other. Another significant shock has been the steep rise in food prices, including the main staple, rice, which has revealed the risk posed by global price volatility for a net food-importing country like Bangladesh. Estimates in this report suggest that the impact of the food price shock has likely negated some of the reduction in poverty brought about by economic growth between 2005 and 2008. Specific areas for policy focus which are elaborated in the report include measures to: (i) promote growth by sustaining increases in labor productivity and job creation in manufacturing and services; (ii) expand opportunities in lagging regions by improving connectivity with growth poles and investing in human capital; (iii) facilitate migration from poor areas given the poverty-reducing impact of remittances; (iv) stimulate women's participation in the labor force (v) sustain Bangladesh's past successes in reducing fertility; (vi) improve poor households access to and quality of education, health, and nutrition services; and (vii) strengthen the coordination, targeting, and coverage of safety net programs.Publication Poverty Assessment for Bangladesh(World Bank, Dhaka, 2008-10)Bangladesh has made good progress in reducing poverty over the past decade despite the series of external shocks which have routinely affected the country. Poverty fell from 49 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2005, propelled by respectable economic growth and relatively stable inequality. These statistics are reflected in tangible improvements in poor people's lives, such as a sharp reduction in those living under flimsy straw roofs in rural areas. Unfortunately, climatic shocks such as the 2007 floods and cyclone, as well as rising food prices, have slowed the country's progress in reducing poverty. Despite these setbacks we expect that Bangladesh will reach its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Poverty reduction is not just about improving household income, but also about enhancing human capability. Our optimism in Bangladesh's future is also based on its significant gains in human development over the past 15 years. Despite its recent progress in reducing poverty, Bangladesh remains a poor country with about 56 million poor people in 2005 and continuing disparities across occupational groups, gender, and regions. Although growing regional inequality is characteristic of many developing countries experiencing rapid economic growth, Bangladesh is somewhat unique in that the natural boundaries created by its rivers limit integration between economically unequal geographic areas. This report shows that higher productivity in agriculture, job creation in urban growth poles and promoting migration will be essential for further poverty reduction across Bangladesh. Sustaining this reduction will require maintaining the progress made thus far in slowing population growth, and providing better quality options in schooling and healthcare. Another urgent priority is to better coordinate the country's existing safety net system in order to expand effective programs in line with the needs of the poor.Publication Timor-Leste Poverty Assessment : Poverty in a New Nation - Analysis for Action, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2003-05)Timor-Leste has achieved enormous progress in rehabilitating its economy, reconstructing its infrastructure, reintegrating its refugees and building the key elements of a sustainable political process in an environment of internal peace. It now faces many challenges of nation-building and of overcoming the deprivation affecting the lives of the poor. This report written in two volumes lays out the challenge of poverty reduction in Timor-Leste. It is based on the first nationally-representative household survey collected during August to December 2001. The report's objectives are modest: to set a baseline for the new country on the extent, nature and dimensions of poverty; and to assist the decision making of the newly elected government and its efforts in formulating, implementing and monitoring its Poverty Reduction Strategy. The overall objective was not to lay out the elements of poverty strategy but rather to present evidence on the basis of which the Timorese can define and refine their own poverty reduction strategy. The key challenge lies now in formulating a poverty monitoring plan that includes both quantitative and participatory elements, and lays out the institutional arrangement for data analysis and reporting to ensure that the collected data inform policy making and program design.Publication Bangladesh - Poverty Assessment : Assessing a Decade of Progress in Reducing Poverty, 2000-2010(World Bank, Dhaka, 2013-06)The purpose of this report is to document some of the aforementioned achievements over the 2000-2010 decade and to illustrate their collective impact on poverty in Bangladesh. Analysis is undertaken to identify which factors contributed to the rapid decline in poverty over time. The main limitation of this report is that the analysis is based on a limited number of data sources, which do not cover all aspects of the poverty reduction process. 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The past few years have underscored the importance of global factors affecting country-level outcomes. However, the series of shocks that affected Bangladesh in 2007-2008 did not significantly slow down the speed of poverty reduction. In Chapters six and seven of part three, the report attempts to uncover some of the reasons underlying Bangladesh's resilience to these global shocks as well as the way in which poor households cope with seasonal shocks, which are a permanent feature of some rural parts of the country, namely Rangpur. Chapters eight and nine explore the role of safety nets and microfinance in helping households deal with shocks and poverty. In part four, chapter ten revisits one of the key findings of the World Bank poverty assessment of 2005 (published in 2008).
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