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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Bangladesh in the early years of the 21st Century. Some of
these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are
unsubstantiated, misleading or even false. No attempt has been
made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of poverty are of particular interest to
you. You might be interested in
exploring the relationship between distribution of labor and per-capita GDP,
for example. Perhaps your paper could
focus on life expectancy or infant mortality.
Other factors of interest might be unemployment, literacy, access to
basic services, etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include some of the possible outgrowths of poverty
such as Human Trafficking,
Street Children,
or even Prostitution. There is a lot to the subject of
Poverty. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. *** Extreme Weather expected in 2024 *** According
to a recent article in The Guardian, Bangladesh is expected to experience
extreme weather conditions due to climate change. The article states that sea
level rises, unpredictable flooding, and extreme weather caused by the
climate heating up will accelerate the release of dangerous levels of arsenic
into the country’s drinking water, putting tens of millions of people at
heightened risk of cancer from contaminated well water. The
article also mentions that Bangladesh is expected to be disproportionately
affected by flooding as sea levels continue to rise. – Microsoft BING Copilot *** ARCHIVES *** The World Factbook - Bangladesh U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html [accessed 9 November
2020] World Factbook
website has moved to ---> www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/bangladesh/ [accessed 5 January 2021] Garments,
the backbone of Bangladesh's industrial sector, accounted for more than 80%
of total exports in FY 2016-17. The industrial sector continues to grow,
despite the need for improvements in factory safety conditions. Steady export
growth in the garment sector, combined with $13 billion in remittances from
overseas Bangladeshis, contributed to Bangladesh's rising foreign exchange
reserves in FY 2016-17. GDP -
per capita (PPP): $4,200 (2017
est.) Labor
force - by occupation: agriculture:
42.7% industry:
20.5% services: 36.9% (2016 est.) Unemployment
rate: 4.4% (2017
est.) Population
below poverty line: 24.3% (2016
est.) Maternal
mortality rate: 173
deaths/100,000 live births (2017 est.) Infant
mortality rate: total: 28.3 deaths/1,000 live births Life
expectancy at birth: total population: 74.2 years Drinking
water source: improved: total: 98.6% of
population Physicians
density: 0.54 physicians/1,000 population (2017) Sanitation
facility access: improved: total: 70.9% of
population Electricity
access: electrification - total population: 75.9% (2016) The
Borgen Project - Bangladesh borgenproject.org/category/bangladesh/ [accessed 27 December 2020] The Borgen Project works with U.S. leaders to utilize the
United States’ platform behind efforts toward improving living conditions for
the world’s poor. It is an innovative,
national campaign that is working to make poverty a focus of U.S. foreign
policy. It believes that leaders of
the most powerful nation on earth should be doing more to address global
poverty. From ending segregation to providing women with the right to vote,
nearly every wrong ever righted in history was achieved through advocacy. The
Borgen Project addresses the big picture, operating
at the political level advancing policies and programs that improve living
conditions for those living on less than $1 per day. The
Linkage Between Poverty and Leprosy Nalikena Muyunda Siyoto, Mulungushi University-Zambia [ Long URL] [accessed 12 April
2022] Some
studies have shown positive linkages between food shortage and food
insecurity with the occurrence of leprosy, and they suggest that impaired host
immune response against the causative bacteria as a result of insufficient
nutritional intake is the possible cause of this condition (Kerr-Pontes et
al, 2006). Insufficient nutrition is related to poverty as only poor persons
can lack nutrition. Some of the world’s poorest areas, including Mozambique, Bangladesh and India, are
disproportionately burdened by leprosy and other neglected tropical diseases
such as lymphatic filariasis. This is because poor
living conditions can act as a breeding ground for such diseases or
exacerbate symptoms of existing ailments. Country
on a Mission - The Remarkable Story of Bangladesh’s Development Journey World Bank Group, 16 September 2021 [ Long
URL ] [accessed 23
September 2021] Bangladesh
is a relatively young country, having gained independence a little over 50
years ago. Despite its youth, however, the country has made exceptional
strides in reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity over the last five
decades. When
the newly independent country of Bangladesh was born on December 16, 1971, it
was the second poorest country in the world—making the country's
transformation over the next 50 years one of the great development
stories. Since
then, poverty has been cut in half at record speed. Enrollment in primary
school is now nearly universal. Hundreds of thousands of women have entered
the workforce. Steady progress has been made on maternal and child health.
And the country is better buttressed against the destructive forces posed by
climate change and natural disasters. Safety First: Bangladesh Garment Industry Rebounds Nazila Fathi, IFC Insights, International Finance Corporation IFC, World Bank Group, 31 May 2021 [Long
URL] [accessed 31 May 2021] This
past June the International Labor Organization reported that 1,690 factories
were complying with fire and building safety standards, and 655 factories
were complying with worker safety standands. Demand
for training program also has increased. “We got so many inquiries that we
had to add capacity and diversify our business,” said Zahir. Authorities
also worked to enforce the stricter safety codes and labor laws. While mostly
larger factories operating in compliance with regulations have thrived, some
smaller and mid-sized businesses that were unable to adopt the new standards
suffered the consequences: Authorities have shut down 59 manufacturing units
so far this year for failing to comply with new regulations. What Can Biden’s Plan Do for Poverty? Look to Bangladesh. Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, N.Y. Times, 10 March 2021 [Long
URL] [accessed 10 March 2021] Life
expectancy in Bangladesh is 72 years. That’s longer than in quite a few
places in the United States, including in 10 counties in Mississippi.
Bangladesh may have once epitomized hopelessness, but it now has much to
teach the world about how to engineer progress. What
was Bangladesh’s secret? It was education and girls. As
Bangladesh educated and empowered its girls, those educated women became
pillars of Bangladesh’s economy. Understanding
food poverty and food vulnerability situation Prof. Sayema Haque Bidisha, University of Dhaka, The Daily Star, 17 January 2021 [accessed 17 January 2021] While
understanding the poverty scenario of the country, we should however keep in
mind that households of a lower income strata spend
more on food than on non-food items. According
to the 2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Bangladesh, households
at the bottom 5 per cent of the distribution spend 62.5 per cent of their
expenses on food while food consumption constitutes only about 33.7 per cent
of expenditure for those at the top 5 percent. It is therefore crucial to analyse food poverty separately from overall poverty. Food
poverty can be defined as a situation where a household cannot afford the
minimum resources necessary to have a nutritionally sufficient diet on a
daily basis. In the
context of Bangladesh, food poverty is conventionally calculated on the basis
of the cost of consumption of a certain bundle of food items which meets the
bare necessity of daily nutrition of 2,122 calories per person. Based
on such a food poverty line, as much as 35.49 per cent of households are
found to be food poor with rural food poverty being 38.25 per cent and the
corresponding figure for urban dwellers being 29.17 per cent. Therefore,
more than one-third households are unable to meet even the minimum daily
caloric requirement and among these households, 11.07 per cent are found to
be chronically food poor. Action
Against Hunger - Bangladesh www.actionagainsthunger.org/countries/asia/bangladesh [accessed 21 March 2021] Bangladesh
is one of the world’s most populous countries, with high rates of
undernutrition: millions of children under the age of five suffer from severe
malnutrition. The country’s public health is further undermined by poorly
developed water resources, inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices, and
recurring natural disasters such as cyclones and seasonal floods, which are
made worse by climate change. Despite
the constant increase in indicators of economic growth, about 31.5% of the
Bangladeshi population lives below the poverty line. Following violence in
Myanmar in August 2017, a large number of Rohingya
and other ethnic minorities crossed the border into Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The
World Bank in Bangladesh www.worldbank.org/en/country/bangladesh/overview [accessed 16 April 2021] Bangladesh
has an impressive track record for growth and development, aspiring to be a
middle-income country by its 50th birthday. The World Bank has supported
Bangladesh since 1972, providing more than $30 billion in support. Looking
back a few years … Advameg, Inc., Encyclopedia of the Nations www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Asia-and-Oceania/Bangladesh-ECONOMY.html [accessed 14 December 2020] Growth rates
have not been high enough to eliminate a substantial incidence of poverty,
estimated at over a third of the population in 2000. Underweight children
under five years old as a percent of the total dropped only 10%, from 66% to
56% between the period 1990–92 and 1998–99. Nevertheless, signs of modest
improvement in the economy have been evident during the past decade, despite
periodic weather disasters, to which Bangladesh remains vulnerable, and
international market ions. Agriculture still accounts for almost 30% of the
GDP, although this proportion has dropped significantly from 50% in 1979/80,
as services have grown from 34.4% to 52%. Industry's share has increased only
from 15.9% to 18%, according to CIA estimates All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT
COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Prof. Martin
Patt, "Poverty - Bangladesh", http://gvnet.com/poverty/Bangladesj.htm,
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