City workshop discusses ways to eradicate extreme poverty

FE Report | Published: April 17, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Speakers at an inter-ministerial workshop expressed their solidarity among themselves to carry forward the efforts centring on eradication of extreme poverty from Bangladesh by 2022.
They said the complete eradication of extreme poverty from Bangladesh was a resolve which could be achieved through implementing three measures.
At the beginning comes the design and implementation of a national programme of livelihood transformative initiatives to rapidly eradicate extreme poverty from Bangladesh.
It is followed by systematically monitoring and reforming public services and social protection 'transfers' to prioritise the needs of the extreme poor.
And lastly, stress should be given to promoting the institutional, policy and behavioural changes needed to address the root causes of extreme poverty.
The Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP)/Shiree, a charitable organisation, arranged the workshop in the city, in which high officials of different government, non-government organisations (NGOs) and international organisations were present.
M A Quader Sarker, Secretary, Rural Development and Cooperatives Division, said eradication of extreme poverty was a very important issue for Bangladesh.
"So everybody in the country should come forward to materialise the dream," he added.
Besides, international donor agencies should also keep continuing their assistance to the extreme poor in the country, he added.
"This is our national issue; we have to think about the subject. Without poverty alleviation no country can go forward," he said.
Geof Wood, Emeritus Professor of Bath University, UK, said the country has made a significant improvement in poverty alleviation in the last one decade. The country has still a long way to go to improve the situation.
He, however, urged the government to include the issue of poverty alleviation in its planning process for the graduation of extreme poor of the country.
The Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP)/Shiree programme is a partnership between the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) under the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division (RDCD) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) to lift 1 million people out of extreme poverty by 2015.