Poverty reduction claim
Khan Ferdousour Rahman, On e-mail
A recent report of Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) claimed poverty reduction in the country by 1.9 percentage point a year in the last five years, which has been questioned by various people including economists, academicians, civil society and even the development partners. The report shows decline of poverty from 49.8 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2005. Bangladesh witnessed poverty reduction of one percentage point a year from 1991 to 2000 against an average GDP growth of five percent. But the latest survey shows that poverty reduction rate almost doubled whereas the growth did not increase significantly in the last five years. In such a situation the survey report raises some questions.With considerable percentage of GDP growth, it is very natural that poverty will reduce. But with the reduction of the incidence of poverty, the intensity and severity of the overall poverty situation is also to be taken into consideration. Due to growth of the economy a few employments have been created. But the inequality has increased tremendously in the society. So the situation has not been improved for the hardcore poor. They are not getting any share from the growth of the economy as the growth is not pro-poor. They are not the subject, but object of development. Our remittance earning has increased from one billion to four billion dollar, which is approximately thirty five thousand crore taka. If it could be distributed among the fifteen crore people then the per capita income would be almost more than two thousand taka. But the remittance is not distributed equally in the society. Bangladesh has also witnessed the sharp price hike of essential commodities in the last few months. It has directly affected the people of limited income and has adversely affected their purchasing power. It is not clear whether the purchasing power is taken into consideration in BBS survey or not. If it is not taken into consideration then the report is not valid and must be rejected. Again, to achieve the PRSP goal we need to halve our poverty by 2015. I think in the present situation it is achievable, provided there is appropriate policy, action plan, monitoring system and support by the developed countries.
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