Conference on Poverty Ends
Stress on better data, tailored policies
Staff Correspondent
A three-day conference on extreme poverty concluded yesterday with participants urging for greater emphasis on gathering better data and tailoring public policies, political structures and market mechanisms to work for the poorest.The conference titled “What works for the poorest?” was organised by Brac in collaboration with the Brooks World Poverty Institute and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of Manchester.
Chairing the concluding session, held at the Brac Centre Inn in Dhaka, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Chairman Rehman Sobhan said there is an urgent need to focus more on the broader socio-political processes that perpetuate poverty and limit development.
Sobhan warned if the underlying socio-political processes were not explored, it would not only be dangerous for the poorest but also would suggest that the current development discourses do not have an adequate or a satisfactory understanding of poverty dynamics.
Quazi Mesbahuddin Ahmed, member of the Planning Commission, dismissed the government initiatives to work for the poorest terming them “rubbish” and expressed his concerns over the state of data collection in Bangladesh.
Expressing his dismay at how researchers and academics have to work with poorly collected and sometimes incomplete data on the poorest, Mesbahuddin urged for improvements in data collection system.
Dr Naila Kabeer of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex observed that the economic, human and political seeds of change must be sown and alternatives to strictly market-based or political solutions for the poorest must be explored.
The seeds of change must be sown so that the poorest can withstand market pressures, prevent or reduce intergenerational poverty, and facilitate participation in mainstream politics.
Syed Hashemi of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) said he was concerned with the increasing losses of the social missions of microcredit as only 25-30 percent of microcredit loans would be provided by development organisations in the coming decades, while the rest would be disbursed by commercial banks or commercial enterprises.
David Hulme, of the University of Manchester, and Fazle Hasan Abed, chairperson of Brac, also reflected on the conference in the concluding session.
The Daily Star and Channel i were the media partners of the conference, while it was sponsored by the UK’s Department for International Development, Canadian International Development Agency and the Aga Khan Foundation.
Ismailimail 