This paper seeks guidance for future directions of a social protection system in rural Bangladesh on the basis of lessons learnt on the ground. For this purpose, an attempt was made to glean insights about the strengths and weaknesses of the existing social protection system by utilising a...

Much has been written about the impact of various interventions, including microfinance, on poverty in rural Bangladesh, and yet many issues still remain poorly understood. The main analytical problem is that in order to appreciate the impact of interventions, it is first necessary to understand...

This paper investigates the link between asset accumulation and poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh by using a recently conducted large-scale household survey and applying a conceptual framework that adapts the well-known entitlement approach to the dynamic context. The study found evidence of...

This paper investigates the patterns of inequality that have emerged in rural Bangladesh in the decade of the 2000s. Two findings stand out clearly –distribution of income has become more unequal over the decade, but, somewhat surprisingly, distribution of consumption has remained more or less...

Three aspects of rural poverty in Bangladesh have been examined in this paper: the trend of poverty over the decade of the 2000s, the evolving pattern of poverty among different population groups over the same decade, and identification of the major determinants of poverty in rural Bangladesh....

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...

Does microcredit empower women, or does it just discipline and control them in a new way? This paper draws on the case of self-help groups (SHG) in rural India to shed light on microcredit’s various contradictory effects. By adopting the rules of patronage, SHGs renew the domination of women...

This paper, using several data sets, investigates whether microcredit programmes, which have been operating in rural Bangladesh for over 20 years, have any long-term effects in improving household income and expenditure and lowering poverty. Both descriptive and econometric analyses show that...