THE goal to bring down the proportion of disadvantaged people living below the poverty line, set at 15 percent by 2021–a key target of Vision 2021 of the government, could be difficult to attain if the scale to measure poverty was set appropriately. A report released recently by Asian Development Bank said the existing scale of gauging poverty was outdated and inappropriate for Asia as it was largely based on African data. If the poverty level is measured on the basis of ADBs suggestion– $1.51 per person/ per day instead of present $1.25 per person/ per day, the number of poor will rise dramatically in Bangladesh. Using the ADB scale to measure poverty would expose the real scene and thus demand that the goals be ramped up.The ADB report said the number of the poor in Asia would rise from 473 million to 1.5 billion as of 2015 if the poverty threshold was raised to $1.51 a day and rapidly rising food prices and vulnerability to shocks were taken into account. That would push the poverty rate in Asia, up from 12.7 percent to 41.2 percent. As a result poverty will remain a serious challenge for Asia including those already in the middle-income segment-well beyond 2030. The report said measures of poverty failed to take account food insecurity and vulnerability to economic shocks and natural disasters, which means many people move in and out of poverty from year to year.The report finds that the food insecurity-adjusted poverty line for Bangladesh was $1.32 per person per day in 2010 and vulnerability-adjusted poverty line was $1.38 per person per day. They correspond to 47.8 percent and 50.9 percent poverty rates for Bangladesh in 2010. These rates are higher than the 43.5 percent poverty incidence in Bangladesh in 2010 based on the $1.25 per person per day line.After updating the conventional scale, an additional 343.20 million people in 2010 were identified as extremely poor, which resulted in the 2010 regional poverty rate climbing to 30.5 percent, instead of being 20.7 percent. Besides, when food insecurity is factored in, it adds 4 percentage points to the region’s poverty rate, increasing the number of Asia’s extreme poor in 2010 by 140.52 million. The ADB said low-income households face increasing vulnerability from various risks or shocks such as those from frequent natural disasters and illnesses. Using a vulnerability-adjusted poverty line adds another 417.99 million people to the number of extreme poor in 2010 identified under the $1.25 poverty line. Combining these factors in 2010, 1,750.42 million Asians, or 49.5 percent, could be considered to be living in extreme poverty, instead of 733.06 million (20.7 percent) in Asia and the Pacific.In Bangladesh, the insight makes our advancement in bringing down poverty following MDGs to 29.5 percent within 2015 a chimera. That means after alleviation of poverty poor people will still exist and will turn all of our rhetoric success stories of poverty alleviation into ‘a fairy tale’. So, fixing the scale first, chalking out a work plan, and pursuing measures to alleviate poverty are imperative. Politics over poverty alleviation is unwanted.
