POVERTY

Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and
shelter. However, poverty is more, much more than just not having enough money. It means not
being able to participate in any recreational activities, for instance attending a school picnic. It
means not being able to afford proper education, proper health care, social services and being
excluded in a society which leads to higher illness like malnutrition. Poverty not only affects
individual people but also society as a whole, in the form of higher health cost, justice system,
unemployment benefits etc.
The World Bank Organization describes poverty in this way:
Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor.
Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear
for the future, living one day at a time.
Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many
ways. Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action -- for the
poor and the wealthy alike -- a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat,
adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what
happens in their communities.
According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), poverty is not a one-dimensional
phenomenon (e.g. "only" a lack of money) but a multidimensional issue that requires a wide range
of solutions for a wide range of problems.

ABSOLUTE POVERTY

Absolute poverty refers to a condition where a person does not have the minimum amount of
income needed to meet the minimum requirements for basic needs for an extended period of time.
For instance, not having access to nutritious food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, formal
education, media etc.

RELATIVE POVERTY

Relative poverty is the condition in which people do not possess the minimum income required to
maintain the average standard of living of the society where they reside. It is one of the easiest way
to measure poverty in a country. However, it varies from country to country as the living standard,
average income of the member of the country varies significantly. Relative poverty also changes
over time. As the wealth of a society increases, so does the amount of income and resources that the
society deems necessary for proper conditions of living thus altering the benchmark for poverty
line. For instance, Bangladeshs adjusted net national income per capita was US $729 in 2012 where
as United States had a figure of US $44801, thus the poverty line would be defined accordingly as
per country standards.

POVERTY MEASURES

Lack of money is no more the only indicator of poverty. A wide array of other factors plays a key
role in leading to deprivation, social exclusion and poverty. Consequently, a number of indicators
must be analyzed in order to take appropriate measures in achieving social inclusion. Below is the
set of common indicators of social protection and social inclusion, used by EU since 2006:
Income
At risk of poverty rate
At risk of poverty rate anchored at a fixed moment in time
Persistent at risk of poverty rate
At risk of poverty gap
At risk of poverty rate before social transfers
Dispersion around the at risk of poverty threshold
In-work poverty risk
S80/S20 income ratio
Gini co-efficient
Employment

 Long-term unemployment rate

Regional Cohesion (dispersions of regional employment rates)
Jobless Households
Employment gap of immigrants
Making work pay indicators (unemployment trap, inactivity trap, low-wage trap)
Education
Early school leavers
Persons with low educational attainment
Low reading literacy performance of pupils
Health
Healthy life expectancy
Child well-being (to be developed)
Housing
Proper housing
Deprivation
Material deprivation (to be developed)
Self-reported limitations in daily activities

POVERTY IN BANGLADESH - POSITIVITIES

Poverty has been one of the most significant socio-economic policy challenges for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has been struggling for a long time to reduce the incidence of poverty and to improve
the living standards of its millions of impoverished citizens. In recent years, Bangladesh has made
significant progress in reducing poverty which is evident from the fall in people living below the
poverty line to 38 million today, from 50 million in 2009. The human development index also
indicates improvement with a HDI of 0.558 in 2013 where as in 200o it was 0.453.
The literacy rate for the adult of the country has increased from 47.5% to 58.8%.

The malnutrition prevalence for male and female both have decreased. For male, from 46.1% of
children under 5 being affected in 2001 where as in 2006 it was 39.3%. For female, the rate fell
from 44.5 to 40.4 over the same time period. The life expectancy also has been lifted up to 70.3 in
2012 where as in 2001 it was 65.3. Around 81% of children had been vaccinated against measles,
compared with 58% in India
Other than that technological progress also indicates Bangladeshs overall povertys gradual
declining trend with cellular subscribers soaring from 5.2 million in 2001 to approx. 97 million in
2012. The internet users have increased significantly as well from 0.1 per 100 people in 2001 to 5.8
in 2012.
The poverty rate (as measured by international aid organizations such as the World Bank) has
fallen from an estimated 74% in 1973-74 to 57% in 1991-92, to 49% in 2000 and then to 40% in
2005.
Though still too high, it continues to fall by around 1% a year, with each percentage point
representing a meaningful improvement in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis. The
country is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by half by
2015.
Even more remarkably, Bangladesh's rapid economic growth has been accompanied by little
increase in inequality. The commonly used Gini index of inequality has changed only from 0.30 in
1995 to 0.31 in 2005.
It's also noteworthy that, since 2000, the real per-capita income of the bottom 10% of the
population has grown at the same annual rate as that of the top 10% (2.8%).

HOW TO ERADICATE POVERTY?

Poverty is not created by the poor people but by the institutions and the policy environment
created by the designers and managers of those institutions. To get the poor people out of people all
that is required is opportunity; the opportunity to earn a living.

Wage Employment: Agriculture is of high importance for Bangladesh especially when a good sum of
people resides in the rural areas. Thus, the more dynamic this sector becomes, the more wage
opportunities are created for the poor.
However, the greater the extent of agriculture reliance, the more chances is the wage will be
reduced which would not be adequate to overcome poverty. Thus the need for employment away
from agriculture arises. We need more investment and expansion of existing industrial base. We
also need local government to create local investment opportunities.
Another opportunity lies in overseas employment. Remittance has been a very strong source of
injecting income into the economy and gives boost to poverty reduction. This can be further
utilized by facilitating the process of manpower export and also by offering the opportunity to
move into a number of countries, given some giants are facing aging population, high working ratio,
this may not be an impossible task.
In addition, the remittances may be used for investment purpose thus creating a win -win situation.
First, the investment would help the investor earn more and move out of bottom of the pyramid. On
the other hand, it would create job opportunities which would help a lot of other people in their
fight to eradicate poverty.
Next, comes the option of receiving microcredit which now provides limitless scope as it enables
self -employment as well as investment at a very small scale too.
Emergence of information technology is one another area of vast prospects. If Bangladesh can open
up all its doors and windows to bring in the flood of information technology, it can create a
completely different story altogether. Synergy between microcredit and information technology can
really work wonders.
Our law and order which continues to deteriorate with each passing day has to be tackled in the
right way as well. Today, even the poor borrower of microcredit is not sure if her investment is safe.

GLOBAL APPLICATIONS

As these numbers suggest, the problems of poverty in Bangladesh, though improved, are far from

being solved. Bangladesh is still one of the poorest countries in the world, with tens of millions of
people living at a level barely above subsistence. But the social and economic trends are moving in
the right direction.
The challenges and opportunities facing Bangladesh illustrate some important themes that many of
the world's developing countries share:
The need to think strategically about development, analyzing a country's potential role in its
region and the world in search of opportunities for growth;
The need to get past myths, stereotypes, and assumptions about poor countries and their
relations to their neighbors;
The need to find fresh, positive approaches to development that emphasize the potential
strengths of a country and its people, not just their problems;
The need to think about how social business can address social and economic problems that
are usually left to be resolved by governments.
These ideas offer hope for alleviating the worst effects of poverty both in Bangladesh and in many
other poor countries around the world.