Bangladesh's extreme poverty rate drops to 12.9 percent, says World Bank

[LA se Karachi]

Its why we will have to wait on this price level data that has been vetted supposedly by the ADB.

The World Bank is generally more discerning and cautious, I would like to see how it materialises over the next few years in their own reports.

What it suggests was the poverty was never as high as 43% or whatever....rather than a crushing drop like you are saying.

I agree wholeheartedly. But like you said, the World Bank still shows the same figures, despite this "adjustment" the BD government seems to have done.

I also wonder if The World Bank will also change their definition of poverty to a higher level next time. Do you know when they are planning to release their next round of poverty data? I believe the last one was released in 2011/2012.

 

[Razia Sultana]

Poverty is a curse of South Asia. Irony is that the region is resource rich yet poverty ridden. Any news about reduction in poverty is a welcome news.
Reduction in rate of poverty in BD can be attributed to internal political stability, right government policies & political will and positive external relations.

 

[Nilgiri]

But like you said, the World Bank still shows the same figures,

Yah thats their website though. Sometimes they only update that much later.

But they did this mention this figure for BD in their recent published report (with the caveat that ADB vetted the price level data that the BBS published).

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25078/9781464809583.pdf

(Page 48):

Bangladesh’s poverty numbers A detailed assessment of price data in Bangladesh involving the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the Asian Development Bank has recently determined that the price data is of good quality and that the 2011 PPP reflects the purchasing power of the Bangladesh taka relative to the U.S. dollar more accurately than the 2005 PPP does. Therefore, the World Bank has adopted the 2011 US$1.90 a day PPP to measure the extreme poverty index for Bangladesh in the context of global extreme poverty monitoring. According to the new estimates, the proportion of the extreme poor in Bangladesh was 18.5 percent in 2010, the year of the most recent household survey. This represents a significantly lower estimate than the previous one for that year (43.3 percent). Yet, the update of the historical poverty rates in Bangladesh using the US$1.90 poverty line consistently shows the stable and sizable reduction in poverty since 1990 more accurately than the previous series using the 2005 $1.25-a-day PPP poverty line.

I also wonder if The World Bank will also change their definition of poverty to a higher level next time. Do you know when they are planning to release their next round of poverty data? I believe the last one was released in 2011/2012.

Whatever they do, I hope they soon figure out a consistent methodology for all. Right now its all over the place and different countries are in different transitions of measurement.

I think the next major poverty report (rather than transitional updates/estimates) will be next year sometime (2017) though I am not sure. This is the one I hope sets the ground for a data series break using MMRP methodology in as many countries as possible.

 

[kobiraaz]

This is not correct. We have discussed this before. There is no way that Bangladesh has cut the percent of people living on $1.90 or less a day from 43.7% to 13% and those on living on $3.00 or less a day from 77% to 23% in just 5 or 6 years. That's ludicrous. No country could do that. Not even China, Japan, or South Korea back in their high growth years. The definition of extreme poverty being used by Bangladesh does not correspond to these figures. The World Bank continues to show this:

http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=poverty-and-equity-database

Already told you
"WB Dhaka office Zahid Hussain in a presentation said the extreme poverty has gone down as the PPP exchange rate for Bangladesh appreciated from Tk 52.4 per US$ in 2005 to Tk 24.8 per US$ in 2011 due to methodological upgradation."

Stop quoting Obsolete 2010 Data.

 

[LA se Karachi]

Already told you
"WB Dhaka office Zahid Hussain in a presentation said the extreme poverty has gone down as the PPP exchange rate for Bangladesh appreciated from Tk 52.4 per US$ in 2005 to Tk 24.8 per US$ in 2011 due to methodological upgradation."

Stop quoting Obsolete 2010 Data.

You did say that, but you did not show me where the World Bank stated this. Nilgiri did, making the chart I posted earlier somewhat irrelevant to this article. As a result, I retract what I said and have deleted that post to avoid confusion for those who may be following this thread.

It's not obsolete because it was from 2010, but it does seem that the World Bank has adjusted the PPP calculation for Bangladesh because of what the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics calculated and the Asian Development Bank recently vetted. But, we'll have to wait and see what the World Bank itself says the next time they do an update.

Yah thats their website though. Sometimes they only update that much later.

But they did this mention this figure for BD in their recent published report (with the caveat that ADB vetted the price level data that the BBS published).

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25078/9781464809583.pdf

(Page 48):

Bangladesh’s poverty numbers A detailed assessment of price data in Bangladesh involving the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the Asian Development Bank has recently determined that the price data is of good quality and that the 2011 PPP reflects the purchasing power of the Bangladesh taka relative to the U.S. dollar more accurately than the 2005 PPP does. Therefore, the World Bank has adopted the 2011 US$1.90 a day PPP to measure the extreme poverty index for Bangladesh in the context of global extreme poverty monitoring. According to the new estimates, the proportion of the extreme poor in Bangladesh was 18.5 percent in 2010, the year of the most recent household survey. This represents a significantly lower estimate than the previous one for that year (43.3 percent). Yet, the update of the historical poverty rates in Bangladesh using the US$1.90 poverty line consistently shows the stable and sizable reduction in poverty since 1990 more accurately than the previous series using the 2005 $1.25-a-day PPP poverty line.

I see. I didn't notice that in the report when I looked through it earlier. But yes, I would feel much better about this adjustment if the World Bank had vetted the data themselves.

Whatever they do, I hope they soon figure out a consistent methodology for all. Right now its all over the place and different countries are in different transitions of measurement.

I think the next major poverty report (rather than transitional updates/estimates) will be next year sometime (2017) though I am not sure. This is the one I hope sets the ground for a data series break using MMRP methodology in as many countries as possible.

I couldn't agree more. It will be interesting to see what the next round of data shows for developing countries.

 

[Homo Sapiens]

Already told you
"WB Dhaka office Zahid Hussain in a presentation said the extreme poverty has gone down as the PPP exchange rate for Bangladesh appreciated from Tk 52.4 per US$ in 2005 to Tk 24.8 per US$ in 2011 due to methodological upgradation."

Stop quoting Obsolete 2010 Data.

I wonder how world bank could have set PPP exchange rate to Tk.52.4 to Dollar in 2005 calculation when the nominal exchange rate was around 55 Taka to Dollar at that time? It would set Bangladesh apart from all developing countries in the world where there is a large gap between market exchange rate and PPP exchange rate.and it was the reason for abnormally high extreme poverty estimation of 43 percent in 2005. Far higher than countries with equivalent per capita GDP.Fortunately they corrected their mistake in 2011.But I am still baffled how could they set PPP exchange rate at almost the same with market exchange rate for a country like Bangladesh?

 

[TopCat]

I wonder how world bank could have set PPP exchange rate to Tk.52.4 to Dollar in 2005 calculation when the nominal exchange rate was around 55 Taka to Dollar at that time? It would set Bangladesh apart from all developing countries in the world where there is a large gap between market exchange rate and PPP conversion rate.and it was the reason for abnormally high extreme poverty estimation of 43 percent in 2005. Far higher than countries with equivalent per capita GDP.Fortunately they corrected their mistake in 2011.But I am still baffled how could they set PPP conversion rate at almost the same with market exchange rate for a country like Bangladesh?

It was done with tacit support of finance ministry as they did not want to loose LDC status.

 

[Bilal9]

It was done with tacit support of finance ministry as they did not want to loose LDC status.

Exactly.

Losing LDC status means losing some very important facilities Bangladesh gets in trade.

Bangladesh became a lower-middle income country sometime ago in reality but that status has been officially withheld for trade benefits.

 

[alaungphaya]

That's awesome news. Now you have the resources to take in all the Rohingya.

 

[Mo12]

I always wonder how poverty is measured by WB?

Anyone has any ideas? I assume they do this by looking at government accounts?

 

[TopCat]

That's awesome news. Now you have the resources to take in all the Rohingya.

Rohingyas will remain there till eternity... We are preparing a good list of Rohingya to handover to the icon of democracy Dew Aug Sun Ki for their repatriation and rehabilitation in Arakan state.

It is a lot more fun to keep Arakan as our de facto proxy inside Union of MM

 

[alaungphaya]

Heh. We sent over 60000, you can send back 2000. Good diplomacy. Also, Rohindeshis have zero polical sway in Arakan. They'd be better off if they were cattle - they'd be more important.

 

[Nilgiri]

I wonder how world bank could have set PPP exchange rate to Tk.52.4 to Dollar in 2005 calculation when the nominal exchange rate was around 55 Taka to Dollar at that time?

Read the ICP papers, which you (and the other two BD's replying) obviously have never done.

I have tried posting the sources and explaining the process to you lot so many times but it hasn't sunk in, nor will it ever do so (which makes sense given the IQ output of BD)...so its a waste of time for me to try anymore. Go find and read the base sources yourselves.

It would set Bangladesh apart from all developing countries in the world where there is a large gap between market exchange rate and PPP exchange rate.and it was the reason for abnormally high extreme poverty estimation of 43 percent in 2005.

Like the MSM, you dont even bother to check your assertion with the data. BD has PPP multiplier (PPP/nominal) of about 2.7 for the latest years.

Here is a list of developing countries with PPP multiplier around that mark or worse (many times much worse even with the county a lot poorer):

Bolivia
Cabo Verde
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Comoros
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Côte d'Ivoire
Djibouti
El Salvador
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Liberia
Mali
Micronesia
Morocco
Mozambique
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Rwanda
Samoa
São Tomé and Príncipe
Senegal
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Yemen
Zimbabwe

Check these countries PPP data yourself. Kenya for example has nominal per capita of 1400, and PPP of 3300. Sound familiar?

They have published 82% the total science output of BD (from 1996 to 2015) with a population of about 1/4th that of BD....and have more patents granted by the USPTO than BD each year like clockwork.

Its not a strange, isolated instance either.

So no the PPP/nominal multiplier does not set apart Bangladesh from the larger developing world at all....but BD intelligence multipliers (under no control of BD govt hands) certainly stand apart by a large margin in how terrible they are.

But I am still baffled how could they set PPP exchange rate at almost the same with market exchange rate for a country like Bangladesh?

Like I am baffled at how BD produces less science and patent output than countries several times poorer. "They" (The IMF) set PPP exchange rate in accordance to the price level data BBS gathers from Dhaka, CTG, a few other places and also rural BD. Talk to BBS if you have an issue with the results. The thing that will probably crumble first under intense scrutiny are the mortality, health and other socio-economic base data that the BBS "collects".... that you lot are (in quite humorous contrast) are so satisfied in believing with no questioning of it because in those cases its a BD "success".

It was done with tacit support of finance ministry as they did not want to loose LDC status.

Yet we should believe all the rest of the data coming out of BD. Don't believe the "crap" numbers, believe just the better ones. Got it.

Good thing there are external interaction numbers completely free of BD ministries and statistic institutes regarding trade, investment, human intelligence etc that we can look and see just how truly basket case BD is....and thus which set of claimed numbers by the BBS/BAL are most likely being faked.

 

[Naheed Janjua]

Bangladesh is doing a great job on economic front - i just wish as brotherly countries relations between pakistan and bangladesh would improve.

 

[Michael Corleone]

No need for WB statistics - the eye test alone tells us extreme poverty has been cut drastically in the last 15-20 years.

There was a time when beggars would go around door to door asking for breakfast and lunch - that 'tradition' is virtually gone. And I don't mean just in Dhaka city, where due to apartment security guards, we don't see beggars anymore (traffic signals and the footpaths are their hangout spots now) . But, even in smaller towns and villages.

i remember seeing beggers in 2016 visit to bd though. seems it earns them more than an actual job