In Bangladesh, as reported in the UNDP Human Development Report 2005, the per capita GDP in PPP US$ is 1,770 as of 2003, against a per capita GDP in US$ of 376 in that year. Accordingly, the PPP US$1 is equivalent to US$0.21, i.e. 21 US cents for Bangladesh. Given the current exchange rate between the US dollar and the Bangladesh taka at about taka 65 to one dollar in that year, the taka value of 21 US cents, or of PPP US$1, is 13.5. Therefore, the poverty reduction target of halving the proportion of people whose income is less than PPP US$1 a day implies that the proportion is on less than Tk. 13.5 a day. What proportion of Bangladesh population was at that level of poverty in 1990? The Bangladesh Progress Report on the MDGs, prepared by the Government of Bangladesh and UN Country Team in Bangladesh in February 2005, talks of 58.8 per cent of the population being below PPP US$1 as of 1991/92, with the proportion targeted for 2015 being 29.4. This poverty ratio as of 1991/92 was estimated by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and World Bank on the basis of cost-of-basic needs (World Bank, Bangladesh: Development Policy Review 2003).

I don't know if it reflects the PPP US$1-based poverty ratio as well. Anyway, in order to achieve the target of 29.4 per cent by 2015, it would have been necessary to reduce poverty by 2.2 per cent per annum during 1991/92-2015. But, so far the achievement has been about one percentage point or about 1.7 per cent per annum. Therefore, a backlog has accumulated. Assuming that the one percentage point poverty reduction per annum achieved during the 1990s has continued up to 2005, the poverty ratio in 2005 would be 46 per cent. In order to achieve the poverty target of 29.4 per cent by 2015, an average annual reduction of 3.6 per cent would be needed for the remaining 10 years.

If we take the figure of 40 per cent, as shown in the 2005 Bangladesh Economic Review of the Ministry of Finance, being poor in 2004 on the basis of inadequate calorie intake (i.e. those not accessing 2,122 Kcal/person/day, on average) and set the target of reducing this proportion to half or 20 per cent in 2015, the required annual reduction rate would be 4.5 per cent during 2004-2015. The proportion of those who do not have access even to 1,805 Kcal per day, which is an extremely debilitating human experience, has been found to be 19 per cent in 2004, and reducing it to half (i.e. 9.5 per cent) by 2015 would require an annual reduction rate of 4.5 per cent.

World Bank's World Development Indicators 2004 shows that 36 per cent of the population of Bangladesh was living on less than PPP US$1 per day in 2000. If the target set for 2015 is to reduce this proportion by half (i.e. to 18 per cent), the annual average reduction rate would work out at 3.3 per cent during 2000-2015. But, given the failure to achieve that kind of poverty reduction between 2000 and 2005, the required rate for the remaining years has gone up significantly.

The latest available draft (as of 12 January 2005) of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), Unlocking the Potential, uses 2000 poverty ratios as the benchmark and uses two poverty ratios for that year at 50 per cent (according to BBS-World Bank estimate) and 40 per cent (according to Household Income-Expenditure grouped distribution data), setting the targets for 2015 at 25 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. The implied average annual rate of poverty reduction in both the cases is 3.3 per cent during 2000-2015. But, the failure to achieve that rate during the past five years has caused the required rate during 2005-2015 to go up significantly. The PRSP also indicates a third target of reducing another measure of poverty, labeled extreme poverty which may be considered a measure of hunger, to reduce from 19 per cent in 2000 to 5 per cent in 2015, at an annual average rate of 4.9 per cent during 2000-2015. This rate has also gone up for the period 2005-2015 due to poor performance over the past five years.

Given all the above mentioned and other available poverty measures from different sources floating above, it is crucial that a consensus is reached by all concerned, certainly within the government as to what is the target for poverty reduction against what benchmark value and year. Even the PRSP and the Progress Report referred to above, both government documents, talk of different benchmarks and different targets.

Depending on which poverty ratio with reference to which year, out of those indicated above, is used as the base, the poverty reduction rate varies between 3.3 per cent and 4.9 per cent per annum for the remaining years to 2015. Even the lowest, 3.3 per cent, is well beyond the past achievements in Bangladesh. Prospects of achieving such an acceleration in poverty reduction look bleak as economic growth does not look like accelerating due to resource and governance (corruption, inefficiencies) constraints and because the distribution of the growth achieved will continue to be highly inequitable given that neo-liberal free market rules and no effective efforts are afoot to reverse that trend and establish an inclusive society. The UN's The Inequality Predicament on the World Social Situation Report-2005 has shown that disparity has been accentuating globally (i.e. between nations) and within nations around the world in the wake of the free market and globalization paradigm.

Let us now see what, in Bangladesh, a per day income of Tk. 13.5 means for a person in concrete terms. This amount has to cover the person's food, shelter, cooking facilities, clothing, healthcare, transportation, and other absolute minimum basic necessities. The price of the ordinary variety of rice, the staple food in Bangladesh, is now about Tk. 18 per kg. Assuming that an average person needs, as a basic minimum, 400 grams of rice a day, the cost of rice would be Tk. 7 per day. Then, the person would also require such items as salt, cooking oil, onions, lentils, and at least some vegetables if not fish or any kind of meat or poultry. Fuel-wood or kerosene is needed to cook the food. The remaining Tk. 6.5 cannot be sufficient for these items. Obviously, no money is left for any of the other basic minimum needs. Therefore, one PPP US$1 fixes the income per person per day for poverty reduction purposes at an ignominiously low level. And, yet over four million people of Bangladesh (about a third of the total population) are today in that category of poor. The target is to raise half of them to a per person/day income of above PPP US$1 or above Tk.13.5 by 2015, assuming that Tk.13.5 remains valid in real terms for the period to 2015.

The question is: by how much above? If one is able to secure four, five, or even ten taka more a day to spend, would that make a difference in respect of their poverty? Hardly. They will in fact remain virtually in the same rudimentary plight. Therefore, the target setting with reference to PPP US$1 is meaningless to the concerned people, to say the least. It is in reality an irrelevant, even cruel proposition; and yet it seems clear that even the target so set will not to be achieved in Bangladesh.

Where do we stand and whereto the society may head is a million dollar (not a PPP one dollar) question under the circumstances, which we may ignore but only to our peril.

Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad is President, Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), and Chairman, Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP)