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Poverty has occupied the central stage of development thinking. In fact, development is about improvement in the income level and basic living standards of the common people. It should focus first and foremost on addressing poverty among the masses. It is because of this, the World Bank (WB), the main function of which is to provide financial and technical assistance to low and middle-income countries to help reduce poverty and promote development, in its October 2025's Bangladesh Development Update stated that the poverty rate in Bangladesh climbed to 21.2 per cent in FY2024-25. This marked a rise in poverty by 0.7 percentage points from the poverty rate of the previous fiscal year (FY24) at 20.5 per cent. Notably, the WB update attributed the rise in poverty to factors including slowed down growth, persistently high inflation and worsening labour market conditions.
As it happens under every type of government without exception including the incumbent interim one, such reports from the international development agencies would often draw a reaction that is at variance, if not an outright denial. So, one is not surprised when the Finance Adviser of the interim government, Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, could not see eye to eye with the global development lender when it came to its (WB's) report on Bangladesh's poverty situation. Dr Ahmed questioned the reliability of the WB's report. In particular, in his reaction to the media, he subjected the WB's method of determining poverty rate to scrutiny. In the present case, what he was referring to in particular was the method of interviewing 5,000 people. Also, the WB's updating the definition of the extreme poor with a new international poverty line, increasing it from the previous US$2.15 to US$3.00 per day, using the purchasing power parity (PPP) of 2021, has also come under scrutiny. In fact, such updating is a standard practice since the higher threshold is actually driven by the need to update the poverty lines and PPs in line with the currently available data. It has to be acknowledged that the purchasing power of the US dollar is declining and with that all calculations based on the price of dollar are also changing. At the same time, with digitalization, the quality of data is also improving.
Now, the question is, short of a time-consuming and costly household census as is conducted by the country's central statistical agency, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), from time to time, local as well as foreign research organisations, including the multilateral development partners, usually conduct their surveys on different issues on the basis of such interviews of a limited segment of the population. They select their sample population, that is, a smaller representative group selected from a larger population for the purpose of the study in question. This is the standard methodology followed by socio-economic research organizations. In that case, critiquing this very method that interviews a sample population to reach certain conclusions about different aspects of the interviewees' lives has to be taken with a grain of salt. Then, all such research findings that different research bodies come up with including the watchdog bodies on different occasions have to be questioned. In that case, one has to produce a still better way of conducting socio-economic researches. But until a better methodology of measuring poverty is being invented, one has to make do with whatever (methodology) is at hand.
This does not mean that the very idea of poverty or the researches on poverty conducted by the Western development thinkers or their think tanks is sacrosanct and cannot be questioned. Of course, the basis of their perception of poverty is faulty. For poverty is the fallout from the exploitation through which transfer of people's land, other forms of their assets and earnings change hands. Also, state-owned properties are stolen in the same way resulting in the rise in level of poverty of a nation and its population. On this score, the previous autocratic regime is the perfect example of how that happens. Obviously, the root of the sudden rise in poverty under the present interim government to a great extent lay in the wholesale plundering and pillaging of the state as well as the public properties in general by those in power and their henchmen in the previous government. The multilateral lender, WB, would have done well also to have taken into consideration this unavoidable part of the truth when measuring poverty.
Whatever the case, the fact remains that poverty level in the country has worsened. Two months back, based on similar methodologies, a local economic think tank and advocacy body, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) also reached an identical conclusion that the rate of poverty in the country jumped to 27.93 per cent in May 2025 from 18.7 per cent in 2022. The majority of the households surveyed by the research body found that the issues affecting the lives of their members included indebtedness, chronic diseases, food insecurity, disguised unemployment and other vulnerabilities. Add to those the prevailing economic and political uncertainties during the previous year. What is of especial note, in this connection, is the observation of Mustafa K. Mujeri, executive director of the Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development that, amid high inflation, it is indeed difficult to see a positive economic outlook over the past three years. Poverty researchers have to take into special consideration the variation in prices of the staple diet of the population, rice. It accounts for the highest 11 per cent weighted average in the overall food basket of the country. Since December 2024, the medium and coarse varieties of rice, which dominate the daily dietary menu of the low income people, experienced double-digit inflation.
The food inflation was 14.1 per cent in July 2024, a 13-year high, when the past autocratic regime was toppled, and so, the interim government inherited it as a legacy. Obviously, the previous figures of food inflation have to some extent reduced the impact of the performance of the interim government.