Safety-net programmes help reduce poverty

Nizam Ahmed A number of safety-net programmes introduced by the authorities concerned over the past several years has helped reduce poverty and ensure food security to the poorer section of the country, officials said on Sunday. There are more than 60 "government-led nationwide safety net programmes," including, according to the officials concerned, six most successful ones -- household farming, empowerment of women with access to income earnings, school feeding, distribution of subsidised food and crop breeding. Such programmes have acted as the cushions for the poor against food price-hike which is directly responsible for exacerbation of poverty and increased level of malnutrition, they said. Over the past one year, the price of rice in Bangladesh has increased by close to 30 per cent, flour by 50 per cent, lentils by 15 per cent and chicken by 37 per cent, according to a recent study by Oxfam, an international British charity. The poor are hit the hardest by such price-spikes as they spend more of their income on food, said the US-based NGO Helen Keller International (HKI). In the latest nutrition survey released recently by HKI, the Dhaka-based BRAC University, and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, an estimated 45 per cent of children under five were noted to be too short for their age group (stunted), reflecting a sign of vitamin and mineral deficiency. Among the safety-net programmes, the then caretaker government launched a 100-day employment generation programme (EGP) to help the poor families affected by high food prices, in September 2008. "Now, the EGP for the rural poor, has become the largest safety net programme in Bangladesh," a senior official of the ministry of labour and employment told the FE. The programme helps the poor farmer families while they await harvesting during a 40-day period in March and May and another period of 40 days during October and December, almost every year. The elected government, after the last army-backed 'caretaker' government during a two-year period of a state of emergency, introduced 'a home, a farm' programme in fiscal year (FY) 2009-10 for the rural areas for small farming in homestead, along with animal production, to enable the poor to become less vulnerable to price-shock. Household food production is part of the government's response to food price volatility. Farmers, mostly females, help boost their yield and income by following the existing farm practices while saving water and soil resources. It also provides improved seeds and animal breeds, monitors and agricultural expert told the FE. "These activities safeguard and improve the food and nutritional security of the most vulnerable groups," an official in the Dhaka office of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Bangladesh said. Empowering women and improving their access to income-earning opportunities is one of the most effective means for strengthening the resilience of households to shocks. Women are more likely to ensure that infants and young children receive the food they need, the WFP official said. The wages of the poor have been increasing in Bangladesh since the 2008 food price-surge. The government should monitor changes in wages relative to food price changes. The average monthly income rose from $94 in 2005 to $150 in 2010, a foreign diplomat said. School feeding programme, launched with the support of the WFP, also helped in maintaining the nutritional status of the children, they said. Nearly 3.0 million primary students received food at school until November 2011 across the country, WFP officials said. There are 16.5 million primary school-age children in the country. Subsidised distribution of food, introduced in 2010, also helped the authorities concerned to keep the prices at a somewhat stable level in the domestic market, officials of the food department said. Other national subsidy programmes in Bangladesh have included rationing for vulnerable groups and those covered under food-for-work. Bangladesh currently maintains an emergency food stocks of some 1.5 million tonnes against an aggregate domestic output of some 35 million tonnes of food, mostly rice. Officials of the agriculture ministry have expressed the hope about increasing further the annual crop output as the relevant authorities have introduced new varieties of rice seeds that can withstand salinity and drought. Meanwhile, Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), a news agency sponsored by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a recent statement, said the elderly, urban poor, women and children are among the most victims of malnutrition in Bangladesh. The level of malnutrition generally increases due to declining intake of vitamin and mineral, following any food price-hike on any occasion, among the poorest, and food prices have been continuing to climb, IRIN said. The IRIN report, however, mentioned that Bangladesh safety-net programmes greatly helped the authorities concerned and the poor to blunt the biting impacts of food price-hike.