Impact of asrayon projects on poverty alleviation: a case study

Abstract

Bangladesh is one of the poor and denscly populated countries in the world. About 49.8% of the populations still live below the poverty line (UNDP, 2004). The main causes of poverty in Bangladesh include low economic growth rate, high population growth rate, landlessness, homelessness, lack of access to the means of production and rcsources, low literacy rate, natural disaster etc. Landlessness and homelessness arc a great challenge I(lr Bangladesh in the area of poverty alleviation. About 14.2% households arc landless (BBS, 2002). The Agriculture Census, 1996 revealed that about 65.36% of rural households are effectively landless with 10.18% having neither homestead nor agricultural land and 28.06% households having homestead but no cultivable land. Due to vicious circle of poverty the marginal landholders became landless and shelterless gradually. As a result, inspite of different pro poor initiatives undertakcn by the Government, the number of landless and homeless households inereascs day by day. But housing is a basic need and it is the fundamental responsibility of the statc to provide sheller to its citizen. Keeping this in mind the Government of Bangladesh has initiatcd and enacted different laws and policies in favor of the poor, specially for the rural landless and homeless for increasing their accessibility to land and land based services in order to reduce the ugly face of poverty. Different rural rehabilitation programs have been initiated ,to provide land and shelter for the landless and homeless. Asrayol1 is such kind of project which provides land and shelter along with training and credit lur income gcneration so that thc bcneficiarics of the project can improvc their economic and social conditions and thus alleviate or reduce poverty. Thc research has attempted to evaluate the performance of the project and to examine the changes of socio-economic conditions of the beneficiaries of the project on the basis of their views. The research also has attempted to examine as well as compare the status of socio-economic conditions of four Asrayon villages on the basis of a number of indicators. It has been found from the study that the economic conditions of the beneficiaries in terms of income, expenditure, savings and investments have improved marginally. But the social status of the beneficiaries has improved significantly. It has been also found that among other issues the dwelling place, XIX hcalthcarc facilitics, acccss to hcalth and family planning scrviccs, acccss to safc drinking watcr and sanitary toilet and acccss to recreational facilitics playcd a vital role to improve their living standard and quality of life. The study has examined the status of women empowerment in the project and found that the project has played a significant role in the empowerment of women. The research has also analyzed the inputs provided by the project and suggested some modifications of its inputs for bcttcr pcrf{ll"lnancc.