2. Contents
1. What Is Poverty?
2. General Overview of the Bangladesh Economic
3. Rural and Urban Poverty
4. Causes of Rural and Urban Poverty
5. Steps for Poverty Alleviation in Bangladesh

3. What is Poverty ?
Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-
being and comprises many dimension. It
includes low income and the inability to
acquire the basic goods and services
necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty
also encompasses low levels of health and
education, poor access to clear water and
sanitation, inadequate physical security,
and lack of voice, and insufficient capacity
and opportunity to better one’s life.

4. General Overview of the Bangladesh Economic
Even though there are political instability,
poor infrastructure, corruption, insufficient
power supplies, and slow implementation of
economic reforms, the economy has grown
5-6% per year since 1996. However,
Bangladesh still remains a poor,
overpopulated, and inefficiently-governed
nation with about 45% of the Bangladeshis
being employed in the agriculture sector.

5. Rural and Urban Poverty
The population in Bangladesh is predominantly rural, with almost
80% of the population living in the rural areas. Many of them live
in remote areas that lack services such as education, health clinics
and adequate roads, particularly road links to markets. They suffer
from persistent food insecurity, own no land and assets, are often
uneducated and may also suffer serious illnesses or disabilities.
Women are among the poorest of the rural poor, especially when
they are the sole heads of their households. They suffer
discrimination, have few earning opportunities.
In the urban areas, there is about 37% of the urban population
living below national poverty line. For those living in urban areas,
especially the capital Dhaka, and major industrial cities such as
Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi, they enjoy a better standard of
living, with electricity, gas, and clean water supplies. Despite this,
there is still a significant proportion of Bangladeshis living in slums
that fall apart during the monsoon season and have no regular
electricity, limited access to health care and to clean drinking water.

6. One of the main causes of rural poverty is due the country’s
geographical and demographic characteristics. A large
proportion of the country is low-lying, and thus is at a high
risk to flooding. Many of the rural poor live in areas that are
prone to extreme annual flooding which cause huge damage
to their crops, homes and livelihoods. These natural disasters
also cause outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne and
diarrheal diseases such as dengue and malaria which will
affect them physically and lower their productivity levels.
The causes of urban poverty are due to the limited
employment opportunities, degraded environment, and bad
housing and sanitation. The urban poor hold jobs that are
labor demanding, thus affecting their health conditions.
Therefore, the urban poor are in a difficult situation to escape
poverty.
Causes of Rural and Urban Poverty

7. Steps for Poverty Alleviation in Bangladesh
i. Trends in the Economy
ii. Regional Trends in Poverty
iii.Mortality and Health Indicators
iv.Literacy Rates in Bangladesh

8. TRENDS IN ECONOMY
Bangladesh made noteworthy progress in poverty reduction and
the attainment of “Millennium Development Goals” during the
1990-2000 period in spite of pitfalls such as instability, inefficiency,
leakage, mis-targeting and erosion of regulatory standards.
Economic growth was most robust in the industrial sector, which
increased in importance from 21 percent to 26 percent of GDP, with
its real GDP rising by an impressive 86 percent during the nineties.
The export-oriented ready-made garment (RMG) sector recorded
double-digit annual growth. Even within the agricultural sector,
however, notable achievements marked the period. The country
attained food grain self-sufficiency in FY2000 and estimated
aggregate production reached approximately 25 million tons.
Despite its declining importance, continues to be the main source
of employment in Bangladesh.

9. REGIONAL TRENDS IN POVERTY
While poverty reduction has occurred for both rural and urban
areas, a disaggregation by geographic regions reveals sharp
regional variations. The largest decline in poverty incidence
occurred for the Dhaka division, followed by Chittagong and
Sylhet. By contrast, poverty headcount stagnated in Barisal and
increased slightly for Khulna. As a result of this unequal pattern of
poverty reduction, regional differences were quite sharp in 2005.
The poverty headcount ranged from a low of 32 percent in Dhaka
and 34 percent in Chittagong and Sylhet, to over 50 percent in
Barisal and Rajshahi.

10. Mortality and Health Indicators
Deprivation in health and deprivation in nutrition are the two most
important causes and consequences of poverty. The report cites
three principal health-problems of Bangladesh: over population,
malnutrition and communicable diseases. Children, women and the
poor constitute the high risk-groups for ill health and the poorest
households bear a disproportionate share of the burden of ill
health; their mortality rate is 85 percent higher than that of the
richest households. The major objectives of policies of the sector
are to reduce mortality and to improve nutritional status, especially
of women and children, the elderly and the poor by providing fair
access to food, water and sanitation. The Government policy seeks
to create conditions whereby people of Bangladesh have the
opportunity to reach and maintain the highest attainable level of
health. Since the present level of public resources devoted to the
health sector falls far short of the requirements, policies are to be
designed to harness the resources of the private sector for
investing in the health sector.

11. LITERACY RATES IN BANGLADESH
In 2005, the national literacy rate in Bangladesh was 51.9
percent; in rural areas, 46.7 percent of the population is
literate and in urban areas 67.9 percent.

12. THE END