A person who grew up in Bangladesh is familiar with the face of poverty. Beggars, hungry children, and desperation are not new for us. I remember how when I was a young girl, a boy showed up at our doorsteps. He was hungry and my mother fed him dinner. He left after he ate and I bawled for him because I wanted him to stay with us, and could not understand why my family did not feel the same way.
This empathy evolved into sympathy; thinking about street children and the desperate lives they lived, made me disconsolate. My sympathy was also coupled with a hint of jealousy for all the freedom they seemed to enjoy. Eventually, it became nonchalance. Poverty was everywhere, and there was nothing I could do about it.
This is the general evolution of our psyche regarding poverty. It leads to the feeling that it is there and nothing can be done. But this is where we are wrong. And this is the reason why we tolerate this social ailment.
Government statistics from 2010 put 17.6% of the population of Bangladesh below the lower poverty line. This represents over 26 million people, or about 6 million families. They struggle with access to khasland, education, medical facilities, and proper livelihoods. Additionally, they also have to contend with climate shocks. The living conditions of the extreme poor are almost beyond the imaginations of people who grew up in middle-class families in urban Dhaka.
Often a part of their daily lives involves thinking about where their next meal will come from, and how their income sources may vary seasonally. Jobs may include strenuous labour, which hardly provide adequately for their families. Children may have to work to share their parents’ burden and provide for themselves.
The deep, entrenched nature of this social ailment makes the extreme poor unaware of globally established norms like sending children to school and not permitting child marriages. Their impoverished lives rob them of the ability to live with dignity and they become deprived, and also often unaware, of their basic rights as human beings.
Extreme poverty is also not unique to Bangladesh. Countries such as China and Brazil have also combated it with targeted programs and commitment. Policies in China in 2004 that ensured near-universal coverage of healthcare changed the face of poverty in that country. A high 2.7% of Chinese GDP is government expenditure on healthcare.
In Brazil, 6.5% of the population lived on just $1 a day in the year 2000. By 2009, this figure was cut in half. The Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) program, which targets short-term poverty through direct cash transfers and aims to eradicate long-term poverty by building human capital through conditional cash transfers, has lifted 50 million people out of poverty and inspired policies in more than 20 countries.
These examples, along with the gains made in extreme poverty alleviation in Bangladesh itself, prove that poverty can be eradicated. 34.3% of the total population in Bangladesh was below the lower poverty line in 2000, as opposed to 17.6% in 2010.
However, this rate may be hard to maintain as the threat from climatic shocks increase and as more and more people fall back into the trap of extreme poverty. According to Shiree, an estimated $3bn will be required to take 6 million families out of extreme poverty by 2022. With Bangladesh’s GDP at $116bn in 2012, this represents less than 0.5% of its GDP per year over six years.
Now that we realise poverty is not an incurable condition, poverty alleviation in Bangladesh should be prioritised because the gains made in industry are obviously not reaching this set of people. Committed implementation strategies, along with programs and policies that specifically target the extreme poor, are needed in order to comprehensively address this pressing issue. Targeted policies could include introducing an Extreme Poverty Reduction Tax which would channel funds towards poverty eradication programs.
All Bangladeshis, not just the government, must take this pledge. In a democracy (almost) the public has a role to play when it comes to what is prioritised by the government. The eradication of extreme poverty is a demandable priority. Community-level private sector initiatives are also essential in bringing about change.
A rising GDP that does not enhance human wellbeing and capacity-building for all is not a sign of economic progress, and what’s more, negates the gains made by development by weighing it down with social malaise.
As long as such large numbers of people do not have the opportunity to have and use economic resources and entitlements and are deprived of social opportunities, there can be no real economic growth.
