Poverty rate declines 8.3pc in six yrs

Bangladesh`s national poverty declined to 23.2 per cent in 2016 from 31.5 per cent in 2010, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in its latest survey said.

The national statistical body in its quarterly estimates (April-June) from the ongoing Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) showed that the rate of poverty reduced by 8.3 per cent over a period of last six years.

The HIES also revealed that the country`s extreme poverty has fallen to 12.9 per cent in 2016 from 17.6 per cent in 2010.

The BBS said the trend shows that Bangladesh is apparently continuing its impressive progress in poverty reduction.

The government said the country was very much on track to reduce the poverty into "zero trajectory" by 2030 as targeted in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).

Member of General Economics Division (GED) Prof Shamsul Alam told the FE that the poverty eradication trend in Bangladesh is impressive as it is on track to achieve SDG target of "zero poverty" by 2030.

According to the HIES data, Bangladesh`s poverty has reduced at a fast rate during the period between 2000 and 2005 as the country cut hunger by 8.9 percentage points.

During the period between 2005 and 2010, the poverty rate has slipped by 8.5 percentage points and during the period between 2010 and 2016 it has fallen by 8.3 percentage points.

Joint director of BBS Dr Dipankar Dey told the FE that they would publish quarterly poverty estimates across the year (April 2016 to March 2017) based on the HIES data, being collected from the ongoing survey.

"We have analysed the HIES data taken during April-June of the current year. During this period, the upper line poverty was estimated at 23.2 per cent. We have plans to disclose the data in next three consecutive quarters analysing the field data," he said.

Mr Dey said although the quarterly estimate doesn`t reflect a country`s real poverty situation of a particular year, but it gives them an idea on the poverty trends in future.

The BBS official said they would be able to unveil the annual poverty data by next April from the yearlong HIES results.

Since 1995-96, the BBS is using the Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method for estimating the incidence of poverty in Bangladesh. In this method, two poverty lines are estimated: lower poverty line and upper poverty line.

Using CBN method, the BBS considers a basic food basket (11 food items). It then selects quantities in the basket which are scaled according to nutritional requirement of 2,122 kilocalories per person per day. And then it calculates the cost of acquiring the food basket. This estimated cost is taken as the Food Poverty Line (FPL).

In the Non-food Poverty Line, the BBS estimates the cost of consuming non-food items by the households close to the food poverty line.

The Lower Poverty Line means the extreme poor households are those households whose total expenditures on food and non-food combined are equal to or less than the food poverty line.

The Upper Poverty Line is estimated by adding together the food and non-food poverty lines. The moderate poor households are those households whose total expenditures are equal to or less than the upper poverty line.

Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI) Dr Ahsan H Mansur told the FE that the BBS`s poverty estimation is very much in line with other national and international estimates.

"Bangladesh is very much on track in poverty alleviation target. If the country can keep the incremental GDP growth momentum and spend more money on social protection and human resources development, the extreme poverty will go to the zero line and the upper poverty will come down to nearly 15 per cent by 2030," he said.

Mr Mansur, also a leading economist, said the government needs to work for increasing the revenue earnings and the investments both from home and abroad for fulfilling its Vision 2021 and the SDG 2030 targets.

Meanwhile, the World Bank in its Bangladesh Development Update in early October this year showed that the country`s extreme poverty rate has been cut to 12.9 per cent in last FY2016.

Using the 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP), the WB has set a standard of calculating the poverty where it says if a person earns less than US$ 1.90 a day will be treated as extreme poor.

The Bank has also lauded Bangladesh`s achievement in poverty elimination as it was one of the fastest cut in the globe over the years.

Prof Shamsul Alam, also an economist, told the FE that the impact of remittances and infrastructures growth in rural areas has played a key role in poverty alleviation in the country.

"We have prepared the National Social Security Strategy to protect the vulnerable groups in the country so that they can come out from the lower poverty line and cross the upper poverty line," he added.