Vulnerability to Seasonal Hunger and Its Mitigation in Northwest Bangladesh

Seasonal hunger is a form of deprivation in Bangladesh, especially in greater Rangpur. For policymaking purpose, knowing who are going to be in seasonal hunger in future is more important than knowing who already are. Our analysis shows that both ex post and ex ante measures of seasonal deprivation are common for the extreme poor and that seasonal deprivation is thus more of a structural than seasonal phenomenon. An econometric analysis, however, suggests that seasonal income explains to some extent the incidence of seasonal deprivation. But physical and human capital endowments of poor households matter a lot to explain who are likely to be vulnerable to seasonal deprivation. More importantly, policies affect both the intensity of seasonal deprivation and its vulnerability. Investments in electrification and irrigation are found to create long-term income earning opportunities, thereby reducing seasonality of hunger. Likewise better access to micro-credit and safety net programs provide opportunities to the extreme poor to stave off seasonal hunger.