This paper examines the role of social safety net problems run by government and NGOs in mitigating seasonal deprivation in a highly vulnerable region of Bangladesh. The paper also explores whether social safety nets help only avert seasonal deprivation or also address seasonality of income and...

This paper addresses whether microcredit participants in Bangladesh are trapped in poverty and debt, as many critics have argued in recent years. Analysis of data from a long panel survey over a 20-year period confirms this is not the case, although numerous participants have been with...

In less-developed economies such as Bangladesh where the farm sector is the major source of employment and income, the rural non-farm sector (RNF) often as an additional source of income increasingly plays an important role in fostering the development of the rural economy, and microenterprise...

Microcredit programs in Bangladesh have experienced spectacular growth in recent years, with a growing number of borrowers availing credit from multiple microcredit agencies. There is a growing concern that if there are not sufficient returns to borrowing from microfinance institutions (MFIs),...

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...

The poor households in the northwest region of Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to the seasonal food deprivation locally known as monga. Households adopt different strategies to cope with monga, including the advance sale of labor or crop as well as seasonal out-migration. Some 36 percent of...

This paper evaluates the efficiency of Programmed Initiatives for Monga Eradication (PRIME) branches by using non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in five districts of North-West region of Bangladesh. The production function approach is used for the assessment of efficiency scores of...

This study was conducted to examine the impact of programmed initiative on MFI sustainability and to analyze the tradeoff between the depth of outreach and sustainability. Based on panel data of 223 MFI branches in Bangladesh over a period of five years, this study documents that extreme poverty...

This paper analyzes the nexus among risk, deprivation and vulnerability that confront the rural poor in their daily life. It examines the nature of shocks, the consequent economic burden, and the coping mechanisms. It explains how shocks affect deprivation and vulnerability of households to...