Our poverty reduction success

WHAT has been a prevailing notion finds authentic confirmation in the World Bank's latest poverty assessment report. The WB flags Bangladesh being right on track to be reaching MDG target on poverty reduction to 28.5 percent by 2015. There is a caveat though—'provided that the country maintains its current pace of poverty reduction.'

The remarkable pace in poverty reduction which places us at a vantage point in pursuit of the agenda has been the cumulative result of a combination of factors. These include leadership focused on the poverty cut-back over a long period of time, irrespective of party in power; rise in income levels as workers moved from agriculture to manufacturing and service sectors; and from self-employment to salaried jobs. An increase of women participation in labour force topped these up.

The credit principally goes to the peasantry, workers and NGOs particularly devoted to education and micro-finance as the building block of horizontal progress.

That such a status could be attained against stunning odds of natural calamities and political and intermittent labour unrests reinforces the hope that were we to contain such negative factors, much more substantial overall progress would have been achieved.

There are three more points claiming urgent consideration. The first one relates to a greater reduction in inequality; the second concerns itself with growing working age population at 25 percent between 2000 and 2010 that needs skill development for acquiring demographic dividends; and last but not least there is a dire need to raise the nutritional standards of the populace.