1 AIT Asian Institute of Technology

NGO interventions and impacts in alleviating rural poverty a study in two villages in Bangladesh

AuthorUllah, AKM Ahsan
Call NumberAIT Thesis no.RD-02-17
Subject(s)Rural poor Bangladesh
NoteA thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science
PublisherAsian Institute of Technology
AbstractThe poverty situation of Bangladesh remained almost unchanged since 1971. Between 1989 and 1996 the number of population below poverty line reduced to only by less than one percent. The issue of poverty has become a matter of grave concern of the government, NGOs and the donor agencies as well. The NGOs hand in hand with the government have been implementing a wide range of development activities with a major goal of alleviating rural poverty. The purpose of the study is to analyze the current poverty situation and trend of pove1iy, poverty alleviation efforts of two NGOs (BRAC and Proshika) with emphasis on the impacts of their activities in two villages in Barisal district. These two biggest NGOs in Bangladesh adopt a holistic approach in their operations to bring about the improvement in economic, social and institutional well being of the rural poor. Data were collected for this study through household survey during the early 2002. A variety of secondary data and information are also used. The findings of the study show that the economic condition of the poor in the study area has not improved when judged against some indicators namely, income, food and non-food expenditure, productive and non-productive asset, food security, and employment opportunities. The Foster Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) index shows that the majority of the beneficiaries remained below the poverty line in terms of income and the overwhelming majority of them remained below the underemployment line (less than 260 days of work in a year). The regression analysis shows that the income of the households is determined by landholding size, family labour, days suffered from morbidities and the employment opportunity. This finding is also strongly endorsed by the perception of beneficiary members on the causes of poverty. Improvement in the social well being of the household members by almost all indicators is evident. Improvement in housing condition is visible, which is supported by the key informants' interviews and observation. Knowledge on hygiene, access to safe drinking water, and sanitary latrine use have improved. Access to qualified doctors is limited. Most of them visit traditional healers such as, kabiraj and religious healers. Women are socially empowered by all indicators (developed by Hashemi, 1998). At the same time household violence on the women was found prevalent in the area. The data further shows that all the beneficiary members have access to institutional credit in the post NGO period and thus reduced dependency on the traditional moneylenders significantly. But most of the members could not use the loan money in a productive investment and they dive1ied the money for other purposes. Data shows that only very few beneficiaries of the area received skill building training revealing the shortcomings in institutional performance of the NGOs. Importantly, emphasis should be placed on the improvement of the beneficiary's capital base, marketable and useful skill development and opportunity for employment.
Year2002
TypeThesis
SchoolSchool of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD)
DepartmentDepartment of Development and Sustainability (DDS)
Academic Program/FoSRural Development, Gender and Resources (RD)
Chairperson(s)Routray, Jayant Kumar
Examination Committee(s)Dale, Reidar;Soparth Pongquan
Scholarship Donor(s)Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
DegreeThesis (M. Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2002


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