Policy initiatives for building inclusive society: A case of poverty alleviation in Bangladesh

Abstract

Redistributive public policies are adopted to uplift people’s well-being and their living conditions. Keeping this assumption in mind, the Bangladesh government has taken several initiatives with a special emphasis on poverty reduction. Because Bangladesh with its higher poverty rate struggled to progress slowed down the development progress. It is proven that the high poverty rate of a country stymies its gradual progress and greatly influences the socio-economic of people. The objectives of the study are to investigate how policy interventions contribute to reducing poverty significantly in Bangladesh and analyze the effects on the livelihood of the poor section. The study followed content analysis for the first objective while a qualitative approach was employed to capture the real scenario of the beneficiary stakeholders through 26 KIIs. A total of 20 direct beneficiaries including 8 females of Dhanbari Upazila (Sub-district) of Tangail district and 6 policy implementers were interviewed. The study found that appropriate policy initiation and its effective implementation mechanism significantly contributed to poverty reduction as the poverty rate went down from 40.0 to 20.5 percent in 15 years. It indicates that target-based initiatives for the group, direct contact and connecting the poor through ICT, inclusiveness in development, constitutional obligation and philosophical foundation, continuation in policy initiative, incremental allocation of budget increase, and strong institutional framework combing the collaboration of government, non-government and international organizations were the notable mechanisms and underlining factors. Several policy initiatives helped increase income, creating employment and enhancing the social status of the poor ensemble. It is also evident that these policy interventions on targeted poverty reduction contributed a lot during the coronavirus outbreak. To reap this benefit, the government should continue with such initiatives as a systematic approach in the permanent policy reduction framework to systemize the policy interventions.