Pockets of poverty and points to ponder

Missing the map
Past or recent research on poverty mostly hovered around its extent, determinants, and dimensions. The distribution of poverty across space, allegedly, received very little or no attention. That omission, I suppose, might have led to a misallocation of resources reserved for poverty reduction. The resources for the poor, in the absence of data pertaining to pockets of poverty, allegedly went to satisfy political agendas rather than economic emancipation. For example, no matter what the poverty level in a particular region appeared to be, the availability of projects or cash resources for the mitigation of poverty might have flown under the umbrella of political considerations. Thus, the spatial dimension of poverty is an issue for policy analysis particularly for the rural sector, where livelihoods are dependent on the natural resource base, which in turn are influenced by geographical factors. If the poor have to be addressed, then poor areas have to be identified as a prelude to the exercise.

To fill in the void, researchers from the Social Sciences Division of the IRRI, in collaboration with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), the local Government Engineering Department (LGRD), and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) implemented a project to identify and map the concentration of the most disadvantaged in Bangladesh. The next job that was performed by these institutions was to analyse the factors contributing to the spatial variations in poverty levels. Such an exercise has been long overdue to pinpoint the poverty-prone areas and to set priorities for agricultural R&D interventions and poverty reduction programs.

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Pockets of poverty
S.P.Kam and Mahabub Hossain of IRRI, along with others on board the research, came out with the mapping of poverty. They have shown the concentration of rural poverty and observed that the highest incidence of poverty (greater than 47 per cent) is in the depressed basins in Sunamgonj, Habigonj, and Netrokona districts; the northwestern districts of Kurigram, Nilphamari, and Nawabgonj; and Cox's Bazar and the coastal islands of Bhola, Hatia, and Sandeep. The areas with low levels of poverty are the greater Dhaka and Barisal regions, and Bogra, Pabna, and Jessore regions. The authors also noted that the picture appears to be the same for the severity of poverty in those areas.

Determinants
Why is poverty pervasive in some pockets but not in others? The possible causal factors could be, first, the asset endowments of households -- human, financial, and physical capital. Second, the opportunity set faced by the households could also contribute to the level and severity of poverty. For example, natural resource endowments, migration, accessibility etc. would dictate the degree of poverty in a particular area.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the researchers observed income inequality and entitlement to land (land ownership and tenancy) as the prime propeller of poverty. Given the same level of income, the higher the inequality in the distribution of income, the higher the incidence of poverty. Thus, the gini-coefficient for per capita income (per cent) and landless households (per cent) was found to be statistically significant. Again, the higher the degree of landlessness, the higher the incidence of poverty in upazilas. The regression co-efficient of the tenancy variable shows that getting access to land from the tenancy market helps reduce poverty.

The policy implication that seems to follow from the findings is redistribution of land through land reform. While such reform would turn out to be highly desirable -- given the existing average size of land holding of 0.53 hectares and high population density -- very little of that could be captured for redistribution. The authors, of course, tend to suggest the redistribution of khas lands for homestead to those who do not own any homestead land. On the other hand, with the exit of land-owning households from agricultural practices, especially cultivation of land, there has been taking place a market-led redistribution of land though tenancy market. And allow me to add another dimension. The experience of the Seed Health Improvement Project (SHIP) is that proper preservation of seeds helps raise output by 10-12 per cent. Poor farmers in some areas reduced the demand for rented land, thus paving way for the new entrants in the tenancy market. Technology appears to abhor a link with tenancy.

The upazilas with low levels of education are concentrated in greater Sylhet, Mymensingh, and the Rangpur regions. The upazilas with higher levels of education belong to greater Barisal, Noakhali, and Comilla districts. The authors mapped a close association of the high incidence of poverty with low levels of educational attainments of the working age population. The policy implication of this is that development of human capital through providing education and training tend to remain the fundamental intervention to benefit the poorest of the rural poor in the medium and long term.

Infrastructure appears to be an important variable affecting the incidence of poverty. Just take the access to irrigation facilities. The area covered by tube-wells and power pumps rose to 52 per cent of the cultivated land in 2002, but mostly to the Central and the Northwestern and Southwestern parts of Bangladesh. Whereas the coverage is still low in poverty stricken areas like coastal areas, depressed basins in the Sylhet and Faridpur belts, and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Electricity? At the upazila, the coverage of electricity varies between 0.3 per cent to 80 per cent of the households. Poverty mapping shows that access to electricity is very low in regions with high incidence of poverty.

Maps and managers
Besides these factors mentioned by the authors, there are some natural factors that go to contribute to pervasive poverty. But let us talk about discrimination-driven or man-made poverty. There are many ways that government can come up with strategies of reducing poverty. Given the poverty map on the desk, policy makers could quickly determine why, where, and how the resources for poverty reduction should go. If, for example, ground water irrigation is a constraint, then arrangements should be made for the use of surface water. If access to electricity is a deterrent, provisions should be there to increase the access. Likewise agricultural research in those pockets could claim a larger share of the research budget.

The poverty mapping done by IRRI helps the policy makers in two fundamental ways. First, identifying the pockets of poverty. Second, getting information about the determinants of poverty in those pockets to act upon. I think the poverty mapping exercise could go a long way to helping formulate workable strategies for poverty reduction in Bangladesh.

Abdul Bayes is Professor of Economics, Jahangirnagar University