1.
Poverty, Growth,
and
Entrepreneurship
Research Ideas
Dhaka
May 28, 2015

2.
Bangladesh Priorities
WORKING WITH 30-50 economists including Nobel Laureates, 100+
sector experts engaging major development organizations, NGOs,
government, businesses, youths, rural and urban Bangladeshis to
identify, analyze and prioritize interventions that will deliver greater
benefit per taka spent, helping move Bangladesh towards Vision 2021
and a more prosperous long term future.

3.
In cooperation with the Research
and Evaluation Division of BRAC,
Copenhagen Consensus Center
organized roundtable discussions
with an aim to figure out smarter
solutions to the most problematic
issues facing Bangladesh.
These roundtables are
one of several sources
for research ideas.
Sourcing ideas and solutions
Smarter solutions for Bangladesh
Complete set of papers
on 30-50 solutions
PRIORITIZATION
Government NGOs
Academia Pvt sector
Think tanks
Development
organizations
Eminent Panel
Assessment
Government and
donor seminars
Rural polls
Newspaper polls
among readers
Youth forums
across the country
Private sector
meetings
Social, economic and
environmental benefit-cost
research by top Bangladeshi,
and international economists
Extensive peer review by sector
experts and academics
100+ ideas on
policies & investments
20162015 Continuous
engagement with
the public via
electronic, print
and social media
Working with
civil society,
government and
sector experts
Widely
advocating
results of
prioritization
exercises
OUTREACH

4.
Research Ideas

5.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(1 of 12)
• Continue emphasis on worker service exports.
• Expand micro-credit particularly for women
entrepreneurs.
• Strengthen land administration to protect poor farmers
from predatory land grabbers.
• Increase public spending for rural electrification and
irrigation.
• Life cycle based disease prevention and curative
healthcare services.
• Extend National Social Security Strategy (NSSS)
especially targeting women.

6.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(2 of 12)
• Improve working conditions to attract more women to
the civil service.
• Create a business challenge fund for rural
entrepreneurs.
• Safe and affordable transport system to increase
women’s mobility.
• Run more buses with reserved seats for women or
women only buses.
• Operate women only buses.
• Increase bus services for girls' schools and colleges in
all cities.

7.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(3 of 12)
• Implement monitoring mechanisms to measure impact
of public policies and programs, particularly from the
gender equality perspective.
• Undertake massive awareness raising to stop all kinds
of discrimination against dalits and excluded
communities.
• Prioritize young, domestic entrepreneurs in acquiring
government tenders of logistic supports of development
projects.
• Allocate free access to utility services for Dalits.
• Integrate sexual minority groups in the national social
protection mechanisms.

8.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(4 of 12)
• Strengthen coordination mechanisms and management
capacity to ensure an effective multi-sector HIV/AIDS
response.
• Provide every disabled child with a Child Disability
Benefit.
• Relocate children with disabilities from the street.
• Expand education program for hearing and visually
impaired children.
• Provide a monthly grant of Taka 800 for children (up to
age 4) of poor, vulnerable families.
• Provide a monthly school stipend of Taka 240 for all
primary and secondary school going children belonging
to the poor and vulnerable households.

9.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(5 of 12)
• Provide a monthly disability benefit of Taka 800 to
children suffering from disability.
• Provide a monthly disability benefit of Taka 800 for
working age population suffering from disability.
• Consolidate all cash-based and food-based schemes
within the Employment Generation Program for the
Poor (EGPP) by 2018.
• Provide financial support to vulnerable women -
widows, divorced, destitute, single mother, and
unemployed single women.
• Expand Maternal Health Voucher Scheme (MHVS).
• Set up a comprehensive pension system.

10.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(6 of 12)
• Index all cash transfers to inflation rate.
• Create a Single Registry Management Information
System to identify the extreme poor for better targeting
of public provisions.
• Strengthen government to citizen (G2C) safety net
payment through mobile banking.
• Develop a nationwide complaints and grievance
mechanism.
• Government’s VGF/VGD programs to emulate BRAC's
ultra-poor graduation program.
• Free distribution of water and healthcare.
• Distribute khas lands to the homeless and landless.

11.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(7 of 12)
• Invest in building more rural roads to generate
employment e.g. transport worker.
• Training women in livestock, poultry and good
agricultural practices.
• Enhance access to health facilities through community
clinic.
• Setting a price for milk producers at the national level.
• Provide safe drinking water in urban slums.
• Develop a solar water pasteurizer system for
purification of at least 10 liters of water.
• Implement Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100.
• Increase social safety net system (direct cash transfers).

12.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(8 of 12)
• Promote livestock farming for the landless.
• Leverage public private partnerships (PPP) to use
government’s resources for SSNs.
• Provide budgetary support to write-off bad micro-
credit debts.
• Offer employment opportunities to secondary school
students.
• Reduce barriers for setting up RMG factories in new
areas of Bangladesh.
• Provide support to micro, small and medium
enterprises (MSMEs), particularly those engaged in
fashion and electronics.

13.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(9 of 12)
• Implementation of different plans, projects and
initiatives under the annual development plan (ADP).
• Establishment of community led housing for the urban
poor.
• Scale up Community Development Committees (CDCs)
savings scheme for the urban poor.
• Replicate and modify, where needed, TUP BRAC’s
Targeting the Ultra-Poor (TUP) Program.
• Replicate and modify, where needed, REOPA Rural
Employment Generation for Public Assets (REOPA).
• Replicate and modify, where needed, UPPR Urban
Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR).

14.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(10 of 12)
• Replicate and modify, where needed, EEE-SHIREE
[Economic Empowerment of the Poorest/Stimulation
Household Improvement Resulting in Economic
Empowerment].
• Extent Char Livelihoods Program (CLP) focus on
extreme vulnerability to flooding.
• Monitor factory compliance on work-conditions and
labor standards within and beyond RMG exports.
• Development of rural non-rice and non-farm
marketing linkages with upstream urban markets.
• Reduce leakages through online transfer of social safety
net payments.

15.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(11 of 12)
• Earmarking 1.2% of GDP every year to realize the goal
of “Zero Extreme Poverty by 2021”.
• Integrate high quality BCC with cash transfers [delivers
large improvements in both inputs into pre-school
child nutrition and anthropometric outcomes].
• Provide every extreme poor household with a bank
account.
• Implement Comprehensive Trade Policy for better
linkages between import and export policies.
• Expediting work on Enhanced Integrated Framework
for increased Aid for Trade (AfT) support.
• Diversify export basket through introducing new
products

16.
Poverty, Growth, and Entrepreneurship;
(12 of 12)
• Widen range of destination markets for exports.
• Setting up a “Global Technology Acquisition fund” to
enable Bangladesh industries to acquire very high
technology knowledge base.
• Design and implement a cluster based SME
Development program.
• Explore potential for exports particularly in IT,
education and tourism.

17.
Full List of Attendees and
Interviewees
Dr. Mahabub Hossain, Head of Research, RED BRAC.
Abdul Bayes, Professor, Jahangir Nagar University.
Dr. Ferdous Jahan, Professor, Dhaka University.
Dr. Bazlul H. Khandaker, Professor, Dhaka University.
Erin Nickerson, Economist, USAID.
Dr. Hamidul Huq, Professor, ULAB.
Ahmed Ishtiaque, Assistant Professor, ULAB.
Rezwan Hussain , Assistant Professor, ULAB.
Md. Mahbubal Kabir, Senior Research Fellow, RED
BRAC.
Moklesure Rahman, Team leader, BRAC.
Ipshita Habib, Manager, BRAC.
Niaz Patwary, Assistant Professor, ULAB.