1. 6 December 2009 6 December 2009 FPWG Consultation on the draft NFP Plan of Action Monitoring Report 2009 Overview of Progress and Policy challenges NFP Objective 2 Increased purchasing power and access to food of the people

2. Selected performance indicators

3. 1. Assessment  CBN poverty rate Upper poverty line: significant decrease from 50% in 1995-96 to 40% in 2005 Lower poverty line: from 35% to 25% over the same period (BBS)  Proportion of undernourished (%) From 36% baseline in 1990-92 to 40% in 1995-97 and 26% in 2004-06 Aim: 18% by 2015 (FAO)  Number of undernourished in million From 41.6 baseline in 1990-92 to 51.4 in 1995-97 and 40.2 in 2004- 06 Aim: 20 by 2015 (FAO)  Rural-urban gap narrowed but rural poverty rate in 2005 still more than 1.5 times urban rate  Income poverty (CBN) reduction has been faster than food insecurity reduction (DCI) in rural areas => less scope for consumption of own produce in cities

4. 1. Assessment (Cont.)  Number of food insecure increased by about 2 million between 2000 and 2005  2005: 56 million living on less than 2,122 kcal/day/per capita  41.2 million of them in rural areas  Income inequality increased (Gini coefficient from 0.31 in 2000 to 0.53 in 2008), esp. in rural areas (from 0.27 in 2000 to 0.49 in 2008)  Inequality compounded by regional disparities in poverty rates notably East and West.  Coastal districts and monga/drought prone areas also among poorest

5. 1. Assessment (Cont.) Changes in food/rice prices  From an all time low (less than 2%) at the beginning of the 2000s, inflation increased to 9.9% in 2007/08  Food inflation rose from beginning FY09-10, reflecting a recent surge in domestic prices of essential commodities  Similar pattern for rice price inflation but with much larger magnitudes: from a 6.9% in July 2006 to a staggering 70.4% in January 2008 followed by downward spiraling to a negative 31.3% in October 2009

6. 1. Assessment (Cont.) Will the MDG poverty and hunger reduction targets be achieved?  MDG Progress Report (2008) estimates the poverty rate at 37% in 2008 and projects that the poverty target (29%) can be reached by 2015, BUT  rate of poverty reduction insufficient for reaching target in rural areas  West of the country foreseen to lag behind target HOWEVER: This does not account for the impacts of the 2007-2008 shocks and effects of unfolding economic crisis  World Bank (2009) estimates that depending on effects of the global recession on exports and remittances: CBN-poverty rate will fall to 31% (against 33% had there been no crisis), under the worst case scenario Recession may undermine poverty reduction prospects in the East given larger concentration of industries and remittances  Latest FAO SOFI (2009): number of undernourished increased between 2003-05 and 2004-06 => World Food Summit target of halving the number of hungry by 2015 unlikely to be achieved

7. 2. Issues and policy challenges  Speeding up broad-based income generation in rural areas  Agricultural sector contributes 20% of GDP and employs more than 70% of the population  Need to step up interventions to increase agricultural productivity in labor intensive/higher value crops with special focus on small and marginal farmers in order to exploit their positive effects on food availability and real wages  Efforts to improve marketing and agribusiness management systems and develop agricultural value chains also required

8. 2. Issues and policy challenges  Expanding productive/income-generating safety nets  Use of upazila-based poverty maps to be systematized in design of programs  Unemployment seasonality patterns to be taken into account in implementation schedule of safety nets  Need to investigate potential trade-offs that difficult living conditions and costs (housing, basic services and employment) generate in terms of food access and consumption to better adapt interventions to urban areas  Need to explore possibility of mainstreaming disaster-risk reduction and resilience-building in safety net program targeting in disaster prone areas  Addressing the specific vulnerabilities of food market- dependent poor people and of coastal/disaster prone-areas

9. THANK YOU