Our policy makers must realise that improvement in the poverty status is not an unmixed blessing. They should get their act together to face pressure from donor countries and organisations who might now start making demands on Bangladesh to contract their debts by paying more in the first place

Escaping the poverty trap

It is touted that the global poverty situation has seen a tremendous development during the past decade. But the fact of the matter is those who have come out of the poverty trap only ‘barely’ advanced in their economic status. Quoting a study of the Pew Research Centre, a report published yesterday mentioned that in the first decade of this century almost 700 million people overcame their abject poverty condition, but this does not mean that people’s overall living standard has improved significantly as these people who have supposedly overcome poverty are still at the low income level; their conditions have improved marginally at best.
As a country Bangladesh has also made some stride in getting out of the poverty situation along with the world. For this development, the World Bank recently categorised Bangladesh as a ‘lower middle income’ nation as its per capita income is now $ 1314 annually.
However, despite this development Bangladesh is still ranked among the least developed countries (LDCs) and that is why there is no point of being complacent. But as Bangladesh is advancing gradually in economic terms, the economic policy makers must remain upbeat for the development’s concomitant challenges it would bring.
Once Bangladesh becomes a full-pledged middle income nation, it would obviously lose many preferential benefits that it presently receives as a least developed country from the donor countries, development partners and the world’s leading financing institutions including the World Bank. The terms of condition for development loan would be less favourable for Bangladesh and the country may lose duty-free access of its many goods to developed countries where applicable. In other words, Bangladesh would enter into a much more competitive global economy. So, the country needs to be well prepared to face the challenge and make the economic game plan accordingly.
Poverty still haunts a large number of people in Bangladesh. To alleviate the poverty conditions of these people, there is, on the one hand, the necessity of taking up more social safety net programmes and there is, on the other, the crucial need to create employment generation.  Though Bangladesh has achieved the lower middle income status, the total number of middle class people in the country is still not as big as it should be. Policy planners, therefore, have to seriously concentrate on how quickly they can pull up the present poverty liners well above the poverty line.

 

Our policy makers must realise that improvement in the poverty status is not an unmixed blessing. They should get their act together to face pressure from donor countries and organisations who might now start making demands on Bangladesh to contract their debts by paying more in the first place

Escaping the poverty trap

It is touted that the global poverty situation has seen a tremendous development during the past decade. But the fact of the matter is those who have come out of the poverty trap only barely advanced in their economic status. Quoting a study of the Pew Research Centre, a report published yesterday mentioned that in the first decade of this century almost 700 million people overcame their abject poverty condition, but this does not mean that peoples overall living standard has improved significantly as these people who have supposedly overcome poverty are still at the low income level; their conditions have improved marginally at best. As a country Bangladesh has also made some stride in getting out of the poverty situation along with the world. For this development, the World Bank recently categorised Bangladesh as a lower middle income nation as its per capita income is now $ 1314 annually. However, despite this development Bangladesh is still ranked among the least developed countries (LDCs) and that is why there is no point of being complacent. But as Bangladesh is advancing gradually in economic terms, the economic policy makers must remain upbeat for the developments concomitant challenges it would bring. Once Bangladesh becomes a full-pledged middle income nation, it would obviously lose many preferential benefits that it presently receives as a least developed country from the donor countries, development partners and the worlds leading financing institutions including the World Bank. The terms of condition for development loan would be less favourable for Bangladesh and the country may lose duty-free access of its many goods to developed countries where applicable. In other words, Bangladesh would enter into a much more competitive global economy. So, the country needs to be well prepared to face the challenge and make the economic game plan accordingly. Poverty still haunts a large number of people in Bangladesh. To alleviate the poverty conditions of these people, there is, on the one hand, the necessity of taking up more social safety net programmes and there is, on the other, the crucial need to create employment generation. Though Bangladesh has achieved the lower middle income status, the total number of middle class people in the country is still not as big as it should be. Policy planners, therefore, have to seriously concentrate on how quickly they can pull up the present poverty liners well above the poverty line.