Bangladesh moved closer to achieving the sixth five year plan target of reducing extreme poverty to 22.5 percent by 2015 as it sustained healthy gross domestic product (GDP) growth and moderate single digit inflation in FY2014.
... Voir la suite However, growth this year slowed relative to last year with declining remittances and losses due to political turmoil. Sound macroeconomic management kept inflation in check, although it increased somewhat due to the one-off effects of supply disruptions and wage increases. Official foreign exchange reserves increased to an adequate level as Bangladesh Bank intervened to keep the exchange rate stable. Weak demand for credit reduced interest rates. Monetary policy remained prudent while fiscal management challenged by shortfall in tax revenue, demand for support from sectors adversely affected by the political turmoil, and under-utilization of development budget. The fund's extended credit facility (ECF) is on track. Immediate challenges are to boost investments in power and roads; manage the transition in readymade garments; and stem the decline in remittances.
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Under financial constraints, exporting may have less to do with productivity and more to do with financial resources. The established relationship between exporting and productivity would differ when examined through the lens of the working capital needs of the firm.
... Voir la suite The hypothesis that working capital matters in the firm's exporting decision is explored in two ways: first, by articulating a dynamic working capital model of the firm that incorporates the firm's export decision. Secondly, by testing the hypothesis empirically using a unique firm level dataset from Bangladesh, where issues of financial constraints are particularly acute. The model shows that productivity determines export status of the firm as long as it is not under financial constraints. However, under financial constraints, export status is less dependent on productivity and more dependent on the availability of working capital. Empirical results support the model's prediction. The relationship between exporting time and the need for greater liquidity is also borne out empirically as shown by a positive and significant correlation between the amount of working capital and the distance of export destination. An important policy implication from the analysis is that short term liquidity is critical in allowing productive firms to export and that access to finance may prevent the benefits of trade liberalization within a country to be fully realized.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS6839 APR 01, 2014
The development objective of the Social Engagement for Budgetary Accountability (SEBA) Project for Bangladesh is to improve effectiveness of Union Parishad (UP) schemes (in terms of quality, timeliness, and compliance with environmental and social frameworks) by ensuring increased community participation, transparency, responsiveness, accountability, and inclusion.
... Voir la suite Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) providing communities with all relevant information about the project; (2) ensuring the stakeholders and beneficiaries are aware of their rights and responsibilities under the project; (3) preparing plan for implementing the principles and requirements of the indigenous peoples planning framework (IPPF) for particular activities and areas; and (4) ensuring that the people are aware of and have easy access to grievance redress mechanism at the local level related to their inclusion into budgetary process and access to budget spending outcomes.
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Plan de développement des populations autochtones IPP710 MAR 21, 2014
The objective of the Chittagong Water Supply Improvement and Sanitation Project for Bangladesh is to increase the sustainable access to safe water and improved sanitation, as well as support the establishment of a long term water supply, sanitation and drainage infrastructure development and operational management program in Chittagong.
... Voir la suite The project has the following components: the first component being water supply and sanitation; the second component is the sewerage and drainage; and finally, the third component is the institutional and operational development, and project management support. The changes include: (i) scaling down project interventions in the water supply and sanitation component; (ii) cancelling some project activities under the sewerage and drainage component; and (iii) amending the project development objective, or PDO and results framework to correspond with the revised project scope.
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"The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence," by David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2014) (henceforth RM) is the most recent of a sequence of papers and web postings that seeks to refute the findings of the Pitt and Khandker (1998; henceforth PK) article "The Impact of Group-Based Credit on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?"
... Voir la suite that microcredit for women had significant, favorable effects on household consumption and other outcomes. In this version of RM, the authors have backed off many of their prior claims and methods after earlier replies noted their faults (see Pitt (1999), Pitt (2011a), Pitt (2011b), and Pitt and Khandker (2012)). Nonetheless, important claims against PK remain in this new version of RM and are addressed below. Readers should refer to Pitt and Khandker (2012) for a discussion of other issues with RM, including a discussion of the bimodal likelihood.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS6801 MAR 01, 2014
This paper uses long panel survey data spanning over 20 years to examine the dynamics of microcredit programs in Bangladesh. With the phenomenal growth of microfinance institutions representing 30 million members with over $2 billion of annual disbursement over the past two decades, it is important to understand the dynamics of microcredit expansion and its induced impact on household welfare.
... Voir la suite A dynamic panel model is used to address a number of issues, such as whether credit effects are declining over time, whether market saturation and village diseconomies are taking place, and whether multiple program membership, which is rising as a consequence of microcredit expansion, is harming or benefiting the borrowers. The paper's results confirm that microcredit programs have continued to benefit the poor by raising household welfare. The beneficial effects have also remained higher for female than male borrowers. There are diseconomies of scale caused by higher levels of village-level borrowing, especially for male members. Multiple program membership is also growing with competition from microfinance institutions, but this has rather helped raise assets and net worth more than it has contributed to indebtedness.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS6821 MAR 01, 2014