Poverty in Bangladesh has greatly declined since the early 2000s, as a result of decades of accelerated economic growth. The tremendous progress in poverty alleviation has been recognized by international institutions. According to the World Bank, Bangladesh's poverty rate fell from 82% in 1972 to 18.5% in 2010, to 12.9% in 2016, as measured by the percentage of people living equivalent to US $ 1.90 or less per day in year 2011 purchasing power of parity terms. Based on the current level of poverty reduction, Bangladesh is projected to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, also into an upper middle-income economy, according to the World Bank.
Video Poverty in Bangladesh
Overview of Bangladesh
A country in South Asia, which borders land with India and Myanmar.
Maps Poverty in Bangladesh
Economy
While Bangladesh suffers from poor rural infrastructure, and political instability, the situation has risen dramatically as a result of strong economic growth, maintaining growth of more than 6 percent from 1996-2016, and more than 7 percent in recent years. Bangladesh's economic growth has been called an "eastern miracle" because of its growing economic power. By 2017, nominal GDP of Bangladesh is calculated at $ 286 billion USD, growing at a rate of 7.65%, making it the 43rd largest economy, and second with the fastest growth in the world.
Rural and urban poverty
The World Bank announced in June 2013 that Bangladesh has reduced the number of people living in poverty from 63 million in 2000 to 46 million in 2010, although the population has grown to around 150 million. This means that Bangladesh will achieve the first Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations, which is poverty reduction, two years before the 2015 deadline. Bangladesh is also making progress in reducing poverty & there is a great chance to overcome extreme poverty by 2030 according to the World Bank.
Since the 1990s, there has been a 1% poverty reduction trend every year, with the help of international assistance. According to a 2010 household survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 17.6 percent of the population is found to be below the poverty line.
Population in Bangladesh is rural dominated, with almost 80 percent of the population living in rural areas. Many people live in remote areas that lack services such as education, health clinics, and adequate roads, especially the road network to the market. An estimated 35 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. They suffer from persistent food insecurity, lack of land and assets, are often uneducated, and may also suffer from serious illness or disability. Another 29 percent of the rural population is considered quite poor. Although they may have a small plot of land and some livestock and generally have enough to eat, their food has no nutritional value. As a result of health problems or natural disasters, they risk slipping deeper into poverty. Women are among the poorest of the rural poor, especially when they are the only heads of their families. They suffer discrimination and have few income opportunities, and their nutritional intake is often inadequate.
An estimated 21 percent of the urban population lives below the poverty line. People living in urban areas, such as Sylhet, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi, enjoy a better standard of living, with electricity, gas and water supply. Even in big cities, however, "most Bangladeshi people live in poverty in messy quarters during the rainy season and have no ordinary electricity.These Bangladesh have limited access to health care and to clean drinking water."
In April 2016, the Asian Development Bank estimates that of 157.90 million people living in Bangladesh, 31.5% live below the national poverty line.
Causes of rural and urban poverty
One of the main causes of poverty is the remnants of colonialism, followed by civil war. What Britain has done for centuries is systematic dismantling and crippling the national economy, ensuring Bengal never rises again. In modern times, poverty is associated with corruption and incompetent governance that do not build much good infrastructure and laws. One of the main causes of rural poverty is due to the geographical and demographic characteristics of the country. Most countries are lowland, and thus are at high risk of flooding. Many of the rural poor live in areas vulnerable to extreme annual floods that cause great damage to their crops, homes and livelihoods. To rebuild their homes, they often have to use loan sharks, and that causes them to fall into poverty. In addition, this natural disaster also causes cholera outbreaks and waterborne diseases and other diarrhea such as dengue and malaria that will affect them physically and lower their productivity levels.
Another cause of rural poverty is the rapidly growing population. This places enormous pressure on the environment, causing problems such as erosion and flooding, which in turn leads to lower agricultural productivity.
The causes of urban poverty are due to limited job opportunities, degraded environments, poor housing and sanitation. The urban poor have jobs that demand hard work, thus affecting their health condition. Therefore, the urban poor are in a difficult situation to get out of poverty.
Environmental and poverty issues
With 80% of the countries located on the flood plain of Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and people from several other small rivers, the country is vulnerable to massive flooding.
While some floods are beneficial to agriculture, high flood levels have been found to be a barrier to agricultural growth. On average, 16% of household income per year is lost due to flooding, with about 89% of losses in property and assets. Of these, households involved in agriculture and fisheries suffer greater losses relative to income.
There is a positive relationship between the risk of flood and poverty as measured by household income, with people living below the poverty line facing higher flood risk, as measured by proximity to the river and the depth of the flood. Property prices also tend to be lower, the higher the risk of flooding, so the more likely a person living in flood-prone areas is poor and vice versa, as they may not be able to afford a safer accommodation. Also, they tend to rely only on cultivating crops and fisheries for their livelihoods and thus more difficult to catch floods than their income.
It is important for the finances of farmers who run small farms to be self-sufficient in their rice and floods have an adverse effect on these factors, destroying fertile crops and soil. Farmers are often forced to make sad sale of land and thus, risk is pushed into or deeper into poverty. In flood-hit areas, especially floods like the 1988 floods, some researchers have found that many affected households have been forced to sell assets such as land and cattle to reduce losses.
Also, in poverty-prone and flood-prone areas, it was found that many poor people did not want to pay for flood protection. The main reason cited is the lack of financial resources although it is found that many of these people are willing to replace non-financial means of payment such as labor, harvest or part of their land.
The above is problematic because it creates a vicious circle for the poor in Bangladesh. Because the poor may not be able to afford a safer home, they must live near a river that increases the risk of flooding. This will result in greater damage suffered by flooding, making the poor a selling asset and pushing them further into poverty. They will further lack the sufficient resources needed to prevent widespread damage from the flood, resulting in even more flood damage and poverty. Then it becomes more difficult to escape from this cycle. Even the peasants who are just above the poverty line are just one bad flood from the ranks of the poor.
The implications of poverty in Bangladesh
The per capita gross national income (GNP) measured at the 2008 price was a surprising low of US $ 520 while the GNI Purchasing Power Parity per capita was US $ 1440 (2008). This is a bleak number when compared to other developed countries. Although the poverty rate in Bangladesh has declined, it does so at a slow rate of less than 2% per year. Poverty is important because it affects many growth factors - education, population growth rates, labor health and public policy. Poverty is most concentrated in rural Bangladesh, creating a gap between rural and urban areas. However, urban poverty remains a problem, too.
In particular, poverty is closely tied to education and employment. A research paper published by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) has shown that poverty acts as a cause and effect of a lack of education, which in turn affects employment opportunities. Having unskilled labor also greatly reduces labor productivity that degrade the attractiveness of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and thereby impedes sustainable economic growth. In essence, education is an important contribution to the social and economic development of a country.
Second, increasing non-adherence is also a consequence of poverty in Bangladesh. In 2000, among the poorest of the poor - the poorest 20 percent of the population - four out of five had less than half a hectare of land. Not only do many have no land at all, but landlessness has increased in rural Bangladesh along with small and marginal farm counts. 2000 HIES finds nearly half (48 percent) of the country's rural population that is effectively landless, has at most 0.05 hectares. About three-fifths of all households in the two poorest quintiles fall into that category.
Finally, for the chronically poor, problems such as food security and health impede social mobility. According to a study conducted by the World Bank in Dhaka, poor people suffer from lack of proper health care in their area because of expensive and poor quality health care services. Poverty-stricken areas do not have the facilities available, or can afford only low-quality health care. This is a common problem in both rural and urban poor. For the urban poor, problems are worsening because they can only live in slums where there are problems with overcrowded and unhealthy living conditions. Both of these factors lead to the spread of disease among the poor who are unable to get better health care. Also, one can not deny that healthy and well-fed citizens are more suited to increased productivity as part of the workforce. Thus, poverty becomes a problem because it affects the social welfare of citizens.
See also
- Bangladesh
- The Bangladesh economy
- List of companies from Bangladesh
- Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development
- Electricity sector in Bangladesh
- Automotive industry in Bangladesh
- Bangladesh RMG Sector
- Natural gas in Bangladesh
- Steel industry in Bangladesh
- Bangladesh textile industry
- Leather industry in Bangladesh
- Bangladesh Executive Judge
- Index of Bangladesh related articles
- Outline of Bangladesh
- Shipbuilding in Bangladesh
- Foreign relations of Bangladesh
- Tourism in Bangladesh
- Dhaka Stock Exchange
- Chittagong Stock Exchange
- 3G (country)
- List of slums in Bangladesh
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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