User:Tanvirul Islam Dipu

Bangladesh's MDG report card

Tanvirul Islam Dipu

Bangladesh has the largest number of poor people in the world after China and India. About 49.6 percent people cannot earn even one dollar a day. This huge number of people is deprived of food and shelter, as well as other basic human needs like education, health, safe drinking water, etc.

The main objective of MDGs is the alleviation of poverty by the year 2015. The agreed goals to be attained by the year 2015 are 1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2) achieve universal primary education, 3) promote gender equality and empower women, 4) reduce child mortality, 5) improve maternal health, 6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, 7) ensure environmental sustainability, and finally 8) develop a global partnership for development. Let us examine the present Bangladesh situation to see where we are in relation to achieving the MDGs.

MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Bangladesh government has fixed the target to reduce proportion of people below $1 per day (PPP) from 58.8 percent in 1991 to 29.4 percent by 2015 and to reduce proportion of people in extreme poverty from 28 percent in 1991 to 14 percent. First of all, it is a big question whether one dollar is a good indicator of poverty in our country, and secondly, the number of poor or very poor people which the government identified differs with other research organizations.

Bangladesh is not on the way to achieve the first target of MDGs. The Daily Star on May 15, 2005 showed a grim picture of the changing poverty situation especially in the rural area. In the rural area household income of poor dropped (by 7.32 percent) and per capita income rose only 0.54 percent over the past six years.

According to the People's Progress Report on MDG (PPRM), 67.5 percent were identified as poor through their self-assessment and definition as against the 53 percent as estimated in the BBS/HIES 2000 survey. More than one third of the rural population (36.3 percent) was identified as very poor and 54 percent as poor.

The economists and social researchers vary their opinion on the base mark of poverty indicator of earning one dollar (approximately Tk 65) per day. It is not possible according to the present context of Bangladesh to purchase day to day needs for a family of average 5.5 members with this amount. On the other hand, the government has agreed to halve the proportion of people in poverty (as per national poverty line) by 2010 and ensure an absolute reduction in the number of poor people within the same period.

According to one report, Bangladesh will require 135 years to eliminate poverty in rural areas and 43 years to achieve the prime target of the MDGs at the current rate of poverty reduction. The poverty monitoring survey 2004 by BBS shows that the poverty rate declined 2.6 percent in the last five years, which amounted to an annual poverty reduction rate of about 0.52 percent. The Citizen's Global Progress Report on Poverty Eradication and Gender Equity ranked Bangladesh as the fifth worst among 125 countries in attaining the MDGs. It placed Bangladesh above only Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger, and Madagascar.

MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education

The second target of MDGs is to ensure full course of primary education for all boys and girls by the year 2015. Here Bangladesh has to increase net enrolment rate from 73.7 percent in 1992 to 100 percent by 2015 and reduce primary school dropout rates from 38 percent in 1994 to 0 percent. In its progress report, the government shows that the net enrollment rate (80 percent) has risen dramatically due to various government interventions like stipend, free book distribution, etc. although there is a big question about the statistics presented here. Different government agencies show different figures about enrollment, dropout, and completion rate. However, all the report shows that female enrollment, dropout and completion rate is much better than male. But the question is, what will happen if every child gets enrollment and completes the five years circle, will they even be able to write their name? PRSP nicely articulates that the education system in Bangladesh is not pro-poor; and the quality and content of education does not effectively serve the goals of human development and poverty reduction. So, the universal goal of increasing enrollment and reducing dropout rate is not a good match in the Bangladesh context. The Education Watch Report shows that only 1.6 percent of pupils who completed five years can achieve measurable terminal competency. Bangladesh has to give attention to quality as well as increasing enrollment and decreasing dropout rate. A study by NRDS with the technical support by Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) 2004 shows that a regular student can get only 0.887 minutes per day from his all teachers jointly and the teacher/student ratio is 1:89 for government primary schools.

MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women The global target of MDGs is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and in all levels of education no later than 2015. Bangladesh has set the target to eliminate gender disparity in primary level from 55:45 in the base year to 48:52, secondary education from 34:66 to 50:50, and from 25:75 to 50:50 in the tertiary level, preferably by 2005 and in all levels of education no later than 2015. The progress report shows that the government has already achieved primary school level target (48:52) and in the secondary level it is about to achieve 52:48. But the largest disparity (36:64) exists in the tertiary level of education. The current ratio of literate females to males of 20-24 year olds is 55:71, which should be 100:100 by the year 2015. The current share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector is 22 percent and the proportion of seats held by women in parliament is only 2 percent. In Bangladesh, the female wage in the agriculture sector is 70 percent and in the non-agricultural sector 42 percent of male wage. According to one report, about 52 percent of female headed households now live below poverty line in the rural area. On the other hand, the areas of decision making such as the bureaucracy and high level jobs, which entails visibility and exercise of authority, women's presence in negligible.

MDG 4: Reduce child mortality

According to UNDP, on average in developing countries, for every 1,000 children, 100 die before the age of five. The target Bangladesh fixed was to reduce under-five mortality rate from 151 deaths per thousand live births in 1990 to 50 by 2015. The infant mortality rate deaths per 1,000 live birth was 94 in the base year and the current rate is 56. The proportion of one year old children immunized against measles went from 54 percent to 69 percent. MDG 5: Improve maternal health Bangladesh fixed the target to reduce maternal mortality from 57.4 deaths per 10,000 live births in 1990 to 14.3 by 2015, increase the proportion of births attended by skilled birth personnel to 50 percent by 2010, reduce TFR to 2.2 by 2010, reduce maternal malnutrition to less than 20 percent by 2015, increase by two years the median age of girls at first marriage and eliminate violence against women. The PPRM found improvement satisfactory, with a mean value of 3.63 which refers to an improved and better situation compared to the earlier situation.

MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases

The Bangladesh government has estimated that the prevalence rate of HIV infection among adults (15-49 years) is less than 0.1 percent. As of end November 2003, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported a total of 363 cases. Even though there is no functional reporting system on HIV/AIDS and the information remains incomplete, Bangladesh is classified as a low HIV prevalence country. Nevertheless, latest surveys indicate a rapid increase of HIV positivity among injection drug users (IDUs) from 1.7 percent in 2000 to 4 percent in 2002. Such concentrated HIV epidemic can have far reaching implications on HIV transmission to other vulnerable populations in the community. Bordered by eastern Indian states of high HIV/AIDS prevalent zone and continuing migration, Bangladesh is at high risk in the context of high population density with low literacy rate.

MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

According to the Forest Master Plan and the Forestry Policy of Bangladesh, only about 769,000 hectares or six percent of the country has actual tree cover. This includes the mangrove and the planted forests. About 1.41 million hectares of former forest is now covered only by grass. Another target for Bangladesh is to increase coverage of safe water from 99 percent to 100 percent in urban areas and from 76 percent (arsenic-adjusted estimate) coverage to 96.5 percent in rural areas by 2015. The PPRM shows that plantation situation both in private and household level is improving with a score of 3.16 out of 5 points, but water and sanitation status is below the mark with a mean score of 2.64.

MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development

In order to achieve these goals, a new global partnership for development -- based on stronger policies, good governance and a real sense of shared responsibility -- among stakeholders in both rich and poor countries is imperative. Support provided by such partnerships would be most effective in reducing poverty when it is given to poor countries with good economic policies and sound governance. The target is to develop further an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction, nationally and internationally, address the least developed countries special needs, and the special needs of landlocked and small-island developing states, deal comprehensively with developing countries debt problems, develop decent and productive work for youth, in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries, in cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies especially information and communications technologies.

The GoB-UN report clearly pointed out the gaps in developed countries' promises in case of Bangladesh as quoted here: "Overseas development assistance (ODA) from countries belonging to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) has been decreasing in recent years, both in real value and as a share of the GNI of donor countries. It has dropped from $1.24 billion (0.28 percent of GNI) in 1996 to $1.02 billion (0.22 percent of GNI) in 2001. ODA to LDCs has also fallen from 0.06 percent of donors' GNI in 1996 to 0.05 percent in 2001. This is far from the target of 0.7 and 0.15 percent, respectively set as the MDG requirements for these indicators. It will need 5 percent of what the world now spending on arms and other means of destructions to meet MDGs by 2015. The success and failure of the MDGs largely depend on the effective implementation of the last goal. The developed countries have a tendency to violate their commitments although they create pressure on the developing countries to keep their promises. World civil society has to play the key role of watch dog to monitor the internal governance system of developed countries to see whether they are keeping their promises or not.