Bangladesh’s poverty rate drops to 24.8%, ultra-poor rate to 6.5 percent
Staff Correspondent, bdnews24.com
Published: 2015-09-16 23:40:56.0 BdST Updated: 2015-09-17 00:44:55.0 BdST
The poverty rate in Bangladesh has declined to 24.8 percent in 2015 while the rate of ultra-poor people dropped to 6.5 percent.
The latest status report on Bangladesh's progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) published on Wednesday gave these figures.
Set by the United Nations in 2000, 2015 is the terminal year of the MDGs.
The report comes at a time when the UN is set to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as the post-MDG global development agenda with a 15-year (2016-2030) implementation period.
The report titled, ‘Millennium Development Goals: Bangladesh Progress Report 2015’, said Bangladesh made remarkable progresses in poverty alleviation.
It also did so in ensuring food security, gender parity in primary and secondary-level education, lowering under-five mortality rate and maternal mortality rate.
The report said immunisation coverage improved and communicable diseases reduced.
Planning Commission member Shamsul Alam, who presented the report, said despite the successes in reaching the MDGs, nearly 40 million people still lived under the poverty line.
Of them, nearly 25 million people were living in high poverty, he added.
Alam emphasised taking further initiative to reduce the rates of hunger and poverty and create employments more along with other issues.
The report said many areas such as primary school completion and adult literacy rates, creation of employment for women with decent wage, increase in the number of skilled health professionals for child delivery, increase in forestation and coverage of information and communication technology needed greater attention.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith, at the report’s unveiling, said, “Bangladesh is leading the countries which have been successful in reaching the MDGs.”
“Productive industrialisation in Bangladesh has contributed to reducing the poverty rate,” he said.
The rest of the world would spend 15 years to the reach the poverty alleviation rate that Bangladesh would achieve in four years, Muhith added.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal gave credit to the gradual growth in Bangladesh’s GDP for the decline in poverty rate.
“The world plans to get rid of poverty by 2030, but Bangladesh will do it by 2018,” he said.
Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said Bangladesh’s MDG scorecard was ‘enough proof that we can deliver on our international commitments’.
He said the country had also received high praises from other countries of the world for continuous progress amid global recession.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman added that the government’s move to introduce inclusive economy and public support had played key roles in poverty alleviation.
Could be. Nobody's trying to measure phalluses here Janaab. Just quoting facts... We need to reduce poverty across the region, it's not a you vs. me competition. But one has to admit that Bangladesh has done well and those lessons can be applied elsewhere.... and your data is old, from 2011......below is recent news report in Pakistani media.
Pakistan and India have identical poverty levels now
SS
Sabir Shah
June 03, 2016
PAKISTAN
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LAHORE: For the first time in the eventful post-1947 history of the Indo-Pak subcontinent, the poverty levels in both Pakistan and India are now resting at an identical yet alarming 29.5 per cent level, meaning thereby that every third Pakistani and Indian is literally fighting every hour just to beat hunger and looming starvation.
While unveiling the “Economic Survey,” Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said Thursday that 29.5 per cent of Pakistan’s total population was languishing below the poverty line.
Similarly, the August 3, 2015 report of the ‘CNN’ had quoted Indian Planning Commission’s estimates that 363 million citizens of world’s largest democracy, making up 29.5 per cent of the total population, were living below the subsistence levels.
The combined poverty figures of Pakistan and India signify that over 400 million Pakistanis and Indians are only striving today to earn a few loaves of bread and breathe.
On August 3, 2015, a ‘CNN’ report had stated: “India's latest Socioeconomic and Caste Census paints a stark picture of widespread rural poverty and deprivation. Of the 300 million households surveyed, an overwhelming majority (73 per cent) live in villages. Of this rural population, less than five per cent earn enough to pay taxes, only 2.5 per cent own a 4-wheeler vehicle and less than 10 per cent have salaried jobs.”
In 2012, the Reserve Bank of India had stated 21.92 percent of the country’s population was below its official poverty limit and in 2010, the CIA World Factbook had calculated that the country’s poverty level was resting at 29.8 per cent.
According to United Nation's Millennium Development Goal Programme, over 270 million or 21.9 per cent people, out of 1.2 billion of Indians, were living below poverty line of $1.25 in 2011-2012.
In 2011, the World Bank had estimated that 23.6 percent of Indian population or about 276 million people were living below $1.25 per day on purchasing power parity. It is imperative to note that since 2005, Indian government had adopted the “Tendulkar Methodology,” which moved away from calorie anchor to a basket of goods and had used rural, urban and regional minimum expenditure per capita necessary to survive.
In Pakistan, it is still not clear how the government has accurately calculated the national poverty level in absence of a fresh census. More than a million Indians are millionaires, yet most of their compatriots live on less than two dollars a day.
India was ranked fifth in the Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2013 with the highest net-worth individuals. As of December 2013, India had 122 billionaires with net assets worth Indian rupees five billion and above.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, the finance minister revealed publicly on Thursday that an amount ranging between $65 billion and $200 billion was parked by affluent Pakistanis in the secret vaults of the Swiss banks.
—Originally published in The News
