| Despite
reductions in the percentage of people experiencing
income/consumption poverty, and non-income poverty, in Bangladesh an
estimated 60 million people remain poor. Many of these people
experience chronic poverty—they are poor for extended periods of
time, die in poverty and transfer poverty to the next generation. The
chronic poor are heterogeneous but often they are concentrated in
particular areas and experience social exclusion for a range of
reasons (gender, age, disability, and social identity). They receive
few benefits from contemporary state, market or social action.
The programme seeks to make
efforts to reduce poverty in Bangladesh more effective by deepening
the understanding of those who are chronically poor, of the processes
that keep them in poverty and of the policy measures that will help
them to overcome poverty and vulnerability. This goal is to be
achieved by the production and dissemination of policy relevant
research findings to government agencies, donors and civil society
and by developing the capacity of Bangladeshi research institutions
to undertake research on chronic poverty. A particular feature is the
publication of the Bangladesh Chronic Poverty Report every two years.
The programme is based
at BIDS and draws upon highly reputed researchers and advocates from
BIDS and other academic/ research institutes and NGOs. The programme
is a sub-centre of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) a
partnership of southern and northern research institutes and
development advocacy organizations led by IDPM at the University of
Manchester. As part of CPRC it gains from access to theoretical and
methodological work and interaction with an internationally reputed
group of researchers. This programme spearheads CPRC work in
Bangladesh and also contributes more broadly to the strengthening of
CPRC through its theoretical and methodological insights.
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