Poverty alleviation in Bangladesh: the case of the Participatory Agroforestry Program

In 1987, Forest Division of Bangladesh initiated a Participatory Agroforestry Program (PAP) in the denuded Sal forest area of Bangladesh for the poor people in order to alleviate poverty and protect forest resources. This study explored the question to what extent the PAP has reduced the poverty and which factors might be responsible for poverty alleviation among the settlers. The research made use of three poverty measurement methods to determine to what extent poverty had decreased: the Head Count Index, Poverty Gap Index and Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Index. To determine which factors might explain possible differences in poverty alleviation, linear regression was used. Semi-structured questionnaire and face to interview methods were used to collect the data with 99 households within the study area. The results show that the PAP program has alleviated 64% poverty which improved the situation considerably. The linear regression showed that differences in poverty reduction can be explained for the larger part (72%) by the family size, months of food sufficiency, distance to market and loan facility variables of the settler. Overall the PAP has been very successful in alleviating poverty; further it can also encourage other countries that faces similar poverty situation to follow Bangladesh in this regards.