Bangladesh is a country of 160 million people with a population density coming to 1142/sq.km. Its economy is not big and developed enough to support such a vast population; high incidence of poverty is the ultimate result. There is a lack of uniform basic infrastructure, such as roads and means of communication and, hence, development can hardly occur in such a poor country.
Some scholars have asserted that the colonial past is an important factor behind the current situation. Professor Gunnar Myrdal also said that colonialism had brought about the retardation of economy by depriving the colonies of the economic benefits of a sovereign state. He elaborated that the inability of locals to pursue active economic development policies, especially in undertaking comprehensive central planning via state control, was leading to the retardation of the economy. Hence, countries like Bangladesh, that are former colonies, face corruption and poverty. Although Bangladesh is making good progress in the socio-economic field by increasing literacy rate, improving life expectancy, increasing food production and decreasing infant mortality and total fertility, the progress in poverty reduction is very slow. Macro-economic growth could not help reduce poverty and income inequality.
ROOTS OF POVERTY: Poverty is the pronounced deprivation of well-being. Due to this one cannot satisfy one's basic needs because he or she possesses insufficient money to buy services or lacks the access to services. The roots of poverty in Bangladesh lie in the way its society is organised through ages. To be more specific, the Bangladesh society has been organised based on classes, so that an elite class dominates the others and exploits them. Much of what is produced goes directly into the hands of this elite segment, and the harvest from agriculture itself is far from being otherwise.
The whole infrastructure and techniques are too underdeveloped. Extreme poverty in Bangladesh is such a problem that any minor upward change in food prices can threaten the lives of millions of people.
The population in Bangladesh is predominantly rural, with almost 80 per cent living in rural areas. Many people live in remote areas that lack services such as education, health clinics, and adequate roads, particularly road links to markets. An estimated 36 per cent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. They suffer from persistent food insecurity, own no land and assets, are often uneducated, and may also suffer from serious illnesses or disabilities. Another 29 per cent of the rural population is considered moderately poor. Though they may own a small plot of land and some livestock and generally have enough to eat, their diets lack nutritional value. As a result of health problems or natural disasters, they are at risk of sliding deeper into poverty. Women are among the poorest of the rural poor, especially when they are the sole heads of their households. They suffer from discrimination and have few earning opportunities, and their nutritional intake is often inadequate.
On the other hand, an estimated 28 per cent of the urban population lives below poverty line. People living in urban areas, like Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi, enjoy a better standard of living, with electricity, gas, and clean water supplies. But even in the major cities, however, a significant portion of the people live in squalor in dwellings that fall apart during the monsoon season and have no regular electricity. These Bangladeshis have limited access to health care and to clean drinking water.
POVERTY IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS: Poverty is most concentrated in the rural areas of the country, thus creating disparities between the rural and urban areas. However, urban poverty remains a major problem too.
One of the main causes of rural poverty is the country's geographical and demographic characteristics. With 80 per cent of the country situated on the floodplains of the Padma, Brahmaputra, Meghna, Jamuna and those of several other minor rivers, the country is prone to severe floods. While some flooding is beneficial to agriculture, high levels of flooding have been found to be an impediment to agricultural growth. On average, 16 per cent of household income per year is lost due to flooding, with roughly 89 per cent of the loss being in property and assets. In order to rebuild flood-damaged homes, the rural people often have to resort to moneylenders, and that causes them to fall deeper into poverty. In addition, these natural disasters also cause outbreak of many waterborne and diarrhoeal diseases, as well as dengue and malaria which affect them physically and lower their productivity levels. Another cause of rural poverty is the fast-growing population rate. It eventually places huge pressure on the environment, which itself is beset with problems such as erosion and flooding. These environmental hazards in turn lead to low agricultural productivity and, thus, poverty. The urban poverty is accompanied by limited employment opportunities, degraded environment, and bad housing and sanitation. The urban poor hold jobs that are labour-demanding, thus affecting their health conditions. Therefore, the urban poor are also in a difficult situation and cannot escape the poverty-related maladies.
Poverty creates a vicious cycle for the poor in Bangladesh. Because the poor may not be able to afford safer housing, they have to live near the river which raises their risk of falling victim to flooding. This would result in greater damage undergone due to severe floods, driving the poor into selling assets and pushing them further into poverty. Property prices also tend to be lower in the event of the higher risk of flooding. It is more likely that someone who lives in a flood-prone area is poor and vice versa, as they might not be able to afford safer accommodation. Also, they tend to depend solely or largely on crop cultivation and fisheries for their livelihood and thus are harder hit by floods relative to their income. They would be further deprived of sufficient resources needed to prevent extensive damage from flooding, resulting in even more flood damages and poverty. It then becomes even harder to escape this cycle. Even those farmers slightly above the poverty line are but just one bad flood away from the ranks of the poor.
EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT: In particular, poverty has been linked strongly to education and employment. Having an unskilled workforce, as in Bangladesh, also greatly decreases the productivity of the people which decreases the appeal of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and thus impedes sustainable economic growth. In essence, education makes an important contribution to the social and economic development of a country.
For the chronic poor, issues such as food security and health hamper social mobility. According to a World Bank study on Dhaka, the poor suffer from a lack of proper health care in their areas due to the expensive and poor-quality services. This is a problem that is common among both the rural and urban poor. For the urban poor, the problem has worsened as they can only afford to stay in slums where there are problems of overcrowding and unhygienic living conditions. These two factors result in the spread of diseases amongst the poor. Thus, poverty matters because it affects the social welfare and productivity of citizens.
Poverty and overcrowding have pushed the countless poor in Bangladesh into seeking their livelihoods in more and more unsafe areas of the country. These poor lack the capacity to organise even minimal safety measures for themselves. Thus poverty does not only condemn humans to the lives of difficulty and unhappiness; it can also expose them to life-threatening dangers. Because poverty denies people any semblance of control over their destiny, it is the ultimate denial of human rights. When poverty violates human rights of half the country's population, most of us look the other way. Poverty leads to extreme frustration, which provokes people to take recourse to desperate acts. Those possessing practically nothing have no good reason to refrain from violence and crime. Poverty also creates economic refugees, leading to clashes between people. It leads to bitter conflicts between social segments over scarce resources: water, arable land, energy supplies and any saleable commodity.
CHILD LABOUR: It goes without saying that poverty is the main cause of child labour in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, children also represent a huge share of the country's workforce, thus creating an agonising economic dependence on child labour. The situation denies these children their right to education and often leaves them with diseases caught while in work - and occupational hazards that will often follow them in the later life.
Humans are born to live. But for the unfortunate in this country, they cannot get their basic needs because they are suffering from a major problem called poverty. People are not poor hereditarily. It's an inordinately unequal social system that makes them poor.
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre.
