Impact of food aided development programmes on rural poverty reduction in Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh, poverty is a great challenge for development. About one half of the population still live below the poverty line. Though the situation is improving gradually yet the pace of improvement is slow. Government, NGOs and Development partners are implementing a series of programmes for poverty alleviation. Government , has been preparing a policy document entitled Poverty Reductio" Strategy Paper (PRSP) for reducing the poverty within shortest possible time. The Target of the PRSP is to reduce the poverty 50% by the year 2015. The interim PRSP' in the name "A National Strategy for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction" has recently been released where a number of targets have been set to improve the quality of life. The priority policy that has been adopted for poverty reduction is social safety nets for the poor through income transfer programmes like FFW, VGD, old age pension, support to female destitute and traditional relief programmes. The survey conducted by the author on food aided programme,s indicated that the food aid to the hard core and ultra poor helps in reducing their poverty status. The food aids provided to them have direct bearing on their human development indicators like literacy, level of education, nutrition etc. The findings of the field survey indicated that there exists leakage in the food aided programmes and the labourers were indifferent about this issue. This speaks of the voicelessness of the poor community which need to be improved for the improvement of the poor. The skill training programme under the VGD programme is not materialized fully which is essential for developing their skill. Nearly one third of the VGD beneficiaries reported that they did get their wheat as per government allocation. It is encouraging that the VGD cardholders have practiced saving behaviour among them. More than three-fourth of the cardholders have deposited some amount in the VGD saving fund. This fund worked as a revolving fund for their loan. A number of women under VGD progr?mme also participated in the social welfare associations which is praise worthy. This is a positive contribution towards creating social awareness of the destitute women. The food assisted development programmes can further be improved with some modification in implementation process. On the basis of the feedbacks received form the programme participants and also from the experience of the studies a number of recommendations have been made which could improve the programmes towards more poverty reduction impacts.