47 pc of rural people live below poverty line

Around 47 percent of country’s total population in rural areas is still living below the poverty line due to absence of pragmatic policies and its implementation and lack of coordination among different development partners.
This revelation was made by speakers at a roundtable discussion on ‘creating job opportunities for distressed women at village level’ at the National Press Club yesterday.
The speakers said despite initiating several development projects sponsored by local and foreign organisations, the country remains among the most densely populated countries in the world where around 47 percent of its total population are living below the poverty line. Among them, the most vulnerable are the women and their children.
They said many local and foreign development partners in collaboration with NGOs have been investing crores of money to ensure development of rural areas and create job opportunities.
For eradicating poverty through creating job opportunities, ensuring improvement of socio-economic condition and sustainable development at village levels should be ensured with collective efforts. To make the mission a success, all including development partners and NGOs will have to take united steps or else, the millennium development goal by 2015 will not be achieved, they added.
Akmal Hossain project director of rural employment opportunities for public assets in his keynote paper said with a view to eradicating poverty of village level women, a project of maintenance of rural roads is being implemented investing euro 2,85,52,328. Around 24,444 women of around 388 unions throughout the country are engaged in this project. And the concerned NGO activists are providing information about the necessities of education, health, sanitation among these women. They are also influencing them for income generating works to eradicate poverty.
The keynote paper also said the government in association with development partners has been implementing poverty reduction programmes throughout the country since long. European Commission, one of the development partners of the country wants to raise its assistances thro-ugh creating job opportunities which will increase access to food for vulnerable groups.

Courtesy of The Bangladesh Today