This is an excerpt from human Rights in Bangladesh 2002, published by ASK.

The subject of this article is complex, but its purpose is straightforward: Argue right to development to empower the excluded - poor and deprived as a necessary precondition for sustainable human development, whereby 'human development' is a freedom-mediated process. Human Development is about inclusion of the excluded in the process of development (but not adverse inclusion). Arguments in all possible cases- are substantiated either by empirical evidences or by logical inferences. The argument of right to development as a freedom-mediated process is based strongly on the current deplorable status of the distressed and deprived persons within the politico-economic criminalized structure in Bangladesh. These distressed and deprived persons can be featured as: a person without a face; a subjugated identity; a lost identity; a redundance; an appendage; a person born to eat last and least; a person born to live on left overs; a person born to be uneducated; a person first to be fired and last to be hired; a person to be born and brought-up in an adverse environment; a person who is 'less than equal'. A real attitudinal change is warranted; traditionally fixed mind set needs to be changed; whole 'ethics' needs to be revisited- to create an enabling environment for the inclusion of the excluded, and for the empowerment of the poor and deprived.
The attempt in this article would be to extend these views and put those in a framework, which would be beneficial to all of us trying both to understand the rights-based approach to human development and to transform human deprivation into human development in Bangladesh. While the canvas is huge in depth and breadth, the chapter will conclude with some suggestions for operationalization of the concept in the context of Bangladesh.

Human Development - a Freedom Mediated Process
Human development is equivalent to ensuring opportunities for a full life to people, especially to those who are excluded- the poor, women, and deprived. Human development is a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy (Sen, 1999). Thus, human development inherently assumes "integration" and beyond just "wealth"; requires removal of all sources of un-freedom; necessitates pro-active participation (not tokenism) of un-empowered in the process of substantive empowerment. It is important to note at this point that the discourse on empowerment is a complex one involving many dimensions of individual and social rights. Empowerment should not be reduced to legal rights or economic bargaining power only, because it has personal and cultural dimensions.
Human development and Poverty (alleviation and/or reduction) are interrelated. Poverty is a multidimensional phenomena and accordingly there are a wide variety of approaches to its definition and measurement. Economists and policy analysts are more prone to focus on money-metric measures of poverty, based on the assumption that a person's material standard of living largely determines their well-being. The poor are then defined or identified as those with a material standard of living as measured by income or expenditure below a certain level- the so-called poverty line.1 Practical problems, largely associated with the difficulty of accurately quantifying income or expenditure, have recently led economists to the exploration of alternative, non-monetary proxies for household welfare. Most pronounced amongst these is the use of household asset indexes; i.e. an aggregate measure of the access to and ownership of specified articles of household attributes.2
It is widely recognised that poverty measures based on household income or expenditure reflect a static concept, offering only a limited picture of household well being. In case of what might be considered transitory shocks to income, households may reduce the consumption of food or household expenditure on clothing or other items in order to preserve their asset holdings, such as land, housing or durables. If, however, shocks permanently affect welfare, house-holds may run down their holdings of assets such as durables, jewellery, livestock or land. Agarwal (1991), examining the welfare impact of famine in Bangladesh, concludes that focusing exclusively on either asset ownership or food expenditure/ nutritional levels/ household expenditure may give a misleading picture of well-being. Vulnerability and livelihood strategy approaches to poverty assessment are seen as offering a more dynamic conception of poverty 3. They focus on the households' ability to cope with shocks to living standards by incorporating measures of investments in human capital (health and education), physical investments (housing, equipment and land), social capital and claims on other assets (such as friendships and kinship networks), stores (food, money or valuables such as jewellery), as well as labour.
Recognition that monetary measures are not all encompassing and fail to capture other important aspects of individual well-being, such as community resources, social relations, culture, personal security and the natural environment, have resulted in the development of a set of complementary indicators which aim to capture human capabilities 4. Capability poverty focuses on an individual's capacity to live a healthy life, free of avoidable morbidity, having adequate nourishment, being informed and knowledgeable, being capable of reproduction, enjoying personal security, and being able to participate freely and actively in society. Material resources at some level are generally necessary for some of these activities, but they are not sufficient. Measures that focus on capability poverty thus incorporate access to public services, assets and employment, as well as money-metric measures which reflect the ability to 'purchase' food, clothing and shelter. Capability poverty can be measured directly in terms of capabilities themselves; for example, the percentage of children who are underweight, or, indirectly, in terms of access to opportunities, or the means of capabilities, such as access to a trained health professional at birth and access to education and other public services. These measures of capability poverty are available in MDG (box below for details see Annex I).

Baulch (1996) has usefully described the progressive broadening of what is thought to constitute poverty in terms of a 'pyramid of poverty concepts'. Each concept represents a dimension of well-being, and each conceptualisation constitutes a different combination of dimensions, with the combinations getting broader and more complex (see Figure below). The traditional 'economic' conception of poverty ideally focuses on line three of Baulch's pyramid; i.e. private consumption combined with common property resources and the consumption of state-provided commodities. However, as discussed below, difficulties of measuring consumption of state-provided commodities and access to common property resources often results in a focus on private consumption alone. At the other end of the spectrum, Sen (1999) sees freedom, autonomy and dignity as central and other concepts are relegated to a secondary level of importance. It should be noted that the more complex the conceptualisation of poverty, the more difficult it is to operationalise. Thus, although Sen's approach is useful in understanding the attributes of welfare, it is difficult to quantify or capture.

A Pyramid of Poverty Concepts

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Source: Baulch, 1996
Note: PC = private consumption; CPR = common property resources; SPC = state provided commodities

Alternative conceptualisations of poverty is a burgeoning array of methodological approaches towards its assessment (McGee and Brock, 2001). These include ethnographic investigations using classical anthropological methods (Scott, 1985; McGee, 1998), participatory poverty assessments (Norton et al., 2001), longitudinal village studies (Jayaraman and Lanjouw, 1998), and conventional household surveys 5. The relative merits of alternative conceptions and methodological approaches largely depend upon the purpose of the analysis of poverty and exclusion.
The issue of poverty needs to be viewed in relation to deprivation: Poor people are caught into the deprivation trap (depicted below), and true human development requires breaking that trap by empowering the excluded poor and deprived. Focusing on human freedom contrasts with narrower views of development, such as identifying development with the growth of gross national product, or with the rise in personal incomes, or with industrialization, or with technological advance, or with modernization. Growth of GNP or of individual incomes can be important as means to expanding the freedoms enjoyed by the members of the society. But freedoms depend also on other determinants, such as social and economic arrangements as well as political and civil rights. The examples are facilities for education and health care, the liberty to participate in public discussion and scrutiny. Similarly, industrialization or technological progress or social modernization can substantially contribute to expanding human freedom, but freedom depends on other influences as well. If freedom is what development advances, then there is a major argument for concentrating on that overarching objective, rather than on some particular means, or some specially chosen list of instruments. Viewing development in terms of expanding substantive freedoms directs attention to the ends that make development important, rather than merely to some of the means that, inter alia, play a prominent part in the process (Sen, 1999)

Deprivation Trap

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Human development is about people, about expanding their choices to lead lives they value. Economic growth, increased international trade and investment, technological advance- all are very important. But they are means, not ends. Whether they contribute to human development will depend on whether they expand people's choices, whether they help create an environment for people to develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives (Human Development Report 2002, UNDP). Therefore, the fundamental to enlarging human choices is building human capabilities: the range of things that people can do or be. The most basic capabilities for human development are leading a long and healthy life, being educated, having access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and being able to participate in the life of one's community. Assuring people's dignity also requires that they be free and able to participate in the formation and stewardship of the rules and institutions that govern them. A poor person who cannot afford to send his/her children to school, but must send them to work in the fields or engage in household work, is lacking in human development. 89
Thus, true human development is freedom-mediated, which requires the removal of major sources of un-freedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states. Despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary rights to freedom to a vast number, perhaps even the majority of people. Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger, or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illness, or the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities. In other cases, the un-freedom links closely to the lack of public facilities and social care, such as the absence of epidemiological programmes, or of organized arrangements for health care or educational facilities, or of effective institutions for the maintenance of local peace and order.
Actually, what people can positively achieve is influenced by economic opportunities, political liberties, social powers, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and nourishment of initiatives. The institutional arrangements for these opportunities are also influenced by the exercise of people's freedoms, through the liberty to participate in social choice and in the making of public decisions that accelerate the progress of these opportunities. Realization of these interconnections is important to put 'people'- the excluded distressed and deprived- in the centre of development.
Basically, there are five distinct types of freedom. These include (1) political freedoms, (2) economic facilities, (3) social opportunities, (4) transparency guarantees, and (5) protective security. Each of these distinct types of rights and opportunities helps to advance the general capability of a person. They may also serve to complement each other and produce synergy (Figure below). All these five types of freedom are linked with one another, and in-integrity produces synergy. Political freedoms in the form of free speech and elections help to promote economic security. Social opportunities- in the form of education and health facilities facilitate economic participation. Economic facilities- in the form of opportunities for participation in trade and production, and access to public resources (e.g, khas land)- can help to generate personal abundance as well as public resources for social facilities. Ensuring free play of all these five types of freedom, in a most visible way, must be viewed as a natural precondition for empowerment.

Mutually Reinforcing Capabilities

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From the justiciable rights-based empowerment perspective, the of persistence and endemic deprivation and the prevention of severe destitution, which emanate from lack of substantive freedom. Here, as stated above, freedom implies all five broad types of instrumental freedoms. Political freedoms refer to the opportunities for the people to determine governing bodies and principles of governance, to criticize authorities, to have the right to penalize for undemocratic governance, to have freedom of expression and an uncensored press. The intensity of economic needs adds to, rather than subtracts from the urgency of political freedom (Amartya Sen 1999). The second form of freedom- economic facilities- refer to the opportunities that individuals enjoy to utilize economic resources for the purpose of production, exchange, or consumption. The economic entitlements that a person has will depend on the ownership of and access to resources (land and other assets) as well as on the conditions of exchange. The third form of freedom- social opportunities- are the arrangements that society makes for education, health and so on, which accelerate the capability of an individual's substantive freedom to live better. Political and economic oppressions substantially reduce the positive effect of social opportunities on individuals or on certain groups of people who are oppressed. The fourth form of freedom - transparency guarantees- are related to openness, i.e., the freedom to deal with one another under guarantees of disclosure and lucidity. Transparency guarantees are based on trust, violation of which adversely affects people's lives. Unfounded enactments, rules and regulations, contradictory official memos, keeping people uninformed about their rights, among others, are some of the good examples of lack of transparency guarantees which pave the way for oppressing people, promoting corruption, underhand dealings, mis-governance, and perpetuation of endemic deprivation. The fifth form of freedom- protective securities - are extremely important because there are people who are vulnerable, fragile and deprived as a result of material changes that adversely affect their lives. The need for protective security can emerge as a consequence of economic structure itself and/or as a consequence of alienation from political and other freedoms. Ensuring protective securities implies the need for strong institutional arrangements. All these freedoms reflect distinct types of rights and opportunities which help to advance the general capability of a person, or a community characterized by some common identity class, gender, culture, ethnicity, geographic location etc. Denial of these freedoms produces and reproduces serious imbalances in terms of social, economic, cultural, demographic, political and psychological life in our society.

Source: Fukuda - Parr 2002

Bangladesh Economy and Politics: Setting the Stage
Human development in Bangladesh is a mosaic of some achievements but many disappointments. Certain reduction in population growth and fertility rates, rise in literacy levels, gender parity in school enrollment rates- all represent important gains. Bangladesh has continuously strengthened its disaster management capabilities. This enhanced capability, as well as the resilience of its long suffering people, was in ample evidence during the resolute and effective people's response in 1998 to one of the century's worst floods.

However, in terms of sustained human development, many daunting challenges remain. First, despite some gains, massive poverty persists, particularly in the rural areas and urban slums; and the basis for unempowerment inequality has broadened and increased. GDP growth rates averaging 5 per cent per annum appear to be well below Bangladesh's potential. Second, confrontational politics weakens the political will and social stamina needed to challenge the self-serving elite, bureaucracy, military, labour unions and corrupt business forces that block the potentials of progress critical for accelerating and broadening development. Third, poor governance, weak institutions and public resources, sector performance inhibit development and reduce the access of the excluded to public services and benefits. Fourth, foreign aid has been less effective than it could be, reducing its impact on growth and poverty reduction.6
Economic progress is too slow to match true human develop- ment. Bangladesh, with a GNP per capita of only $390, remains one of the world's least developed HDI countries, 145 out of 173 in UNDP's Human Development Index. Growth with inequity certainly aggravates the poverty situation and the deprivation trap.

Bangladesh seems to be caught in the trap of economic criminalization. This trap is attributable, among others, to the legacy of anti-poor political economy and crisis in governance. The nature of crisis in governance should be assessed from three inextricably linked dimensions of humane governance: economic, political and civic.. Economic governance consists of absolute and relative spending on social priority sectors reflected through extent of priority assigned to public goods, extent of compliance of allocation with national needs, and equity considerations. Political governance includes the factors associated with the use of institutions by the government to govern, among which the major ones are accountability and transparency, and compliance with rules and regulations. The essence of civic governance is the right and responsibility of the governed quarters to participate in and promote good governance. The deep-rooted, politico-economic crisis is both cause and outcome of the following macro issues, among others:

1. Criminalization of economy and politics.
2. Dominance of black money (Taka 600 billion annually).
3. Huge drain of national resources, both in private and public sectors.
4. Predominance of worst form of capital, which is anti-industrialisation.
5. Non-accountable banking sector (unpaid loans of Tk.200 billion) and inefficient financial institutions: powerful catalyst for economic distortions and impetus for criminalization.
6. Low investment - both public and private (including FDI).
7. Low priority assigned to human development expenditure, and high priority to unproductive sectors (e.g, military spending and administration).
8. Acute process of pauperization in rural economy.
9. Liquidity crisis due to high government borrowing.
10. Slumization instead of urbanization.

The garment industry, one of Bangladesh's most striking successes, has succeeded largely by by-passing the banking system, getting most of its working capital from family contacts or from companies overseas via back-to-back letters of credit. But industry as a whole appears to have stalled - the current growth in manufacturing will be little more than three per cent. WTO's impact on this sector, after withdrawal of quota, according to the experts, will be negative. This sector is already experiencing a sharp downfall after nine-eleven, invasion in Iraq and rapid market changes in the developed economies. These imply a possibility of life threatening situation for two million female workers in the garments, and consequent sharp decline in export earning which is already in place. Anti-industrializa- tion nature of capital will continue to act as major deterrent for backward linkage industrialization in Bangladesh.

The overall investment climate is bleak. Domestic capital due to the very nature of the capital (trading and commission agency) is reluctant to transform into productive industrial capital. The overall investment climate is non-conducive due to many factors - the rule of law (crime, corruption, law enforcement); bureaucratic harassment (tax administration and other regulations); macro-economic stability; political stability; strength of financial institutions; quality of infrastructure (power and communications). Unless domestic productive investment is ensured the likelihood that foreign investment will come forward is minimal.

Neither foreign portfolio nor investment has made much impression. Foreign investors have moved funds into the Dhaka Stock Exchange, but they have moved them out again - in 1995-96 there was a $ 23 million net outflow. And foreign direct investment has proved no more positive - in the same year it was only around $ 5 million. The most consistent flow of foreign investment has gone into the country's two export processing zones in Dhaka and Chittagong, which between 1983 and 2000 had accumulated investment of $ 330 million and given employment to 58,000 people. The remittances from Bangladeshi's abroad is at least ten times higher than the FDI. Unless the domestic economic management is streamlined, the factors responsible to attract FDI for productive pursuits will not be in place.
Agriculture will remain the backbone of the economy, with around 30 per cent of GDP. But average growth here, even with diversification, is unlikely to be much more than three per cent per year, so non-farm rural or semi-urban activities in manufacturing and services will have to expand at two or three times that rate to make up the difference. But finance remains difficult. While NGOs are skilled at offering micro-credit to upper-poor households, and banks are willing to finance larger enterprises, lower-poor are left-out, and small business in the middle have to fall back on their own savings or sometimes remittances from Bangladeshi workers overseas.

There has been some apparent attempts to restore democracy and institute norms. Successive elections have been conducted under Interim Governments, and parliament is broadcast live on TV and radio. But the real spirit of democracy is still weak. Bangladesh remains a highly centralized and bureaucratic state. At the top, political debate often reverts quickly into party confrontations divisions that are mirrored in many other institutions, and can too easily spill over into violence on the streets. While at the bottom, millions of people are marginalized by their poverty from genuine participation in national life. The process of inclusion of the excluded into the human development is too weak to make any significant dent on poverty eradication. Part of the problem can be explained through the long period of autocratic rule. The legacy of autocratic government has also steadily concentrated power in Dhaka, reducing officials at the district and thana levels to functionaries carrying out centrally ordained directives.

Since independence, the Civil Service in Bangladesh has been growing at an average rate of 3.6 per cent per year- considerably faster than the overall population. Currently, there are over one million civil servants. The system as a whole is persistently unresponsive and unaccountable. Few people have high expectations in their contact with government servants- indeed they are pleasantly surprised if they receive the service to which they are entitled.
There is no denying the fact that those who suffer most are the perennially distressed and deprived poor and illiterate. But even the largest enterprises have trouble dealing with officialdom and a dense thicket of regulations. One survey of exporters, for example, found that most of them had to employ someone full time to deal with government officials and that dealing with export and import delays cost them an average of eight per cent of their sales revenue.

The deficiencies in democratic accountability and public administration have left huge gaps, some of which have been filled by NGOs. Bangladesh has some of the most innovative and enterprising NGOs in the world. The country now has upwards of 1,000 foreign-funded NGOs of all shapes and sizes spending about $500 millions per year. Originally they got most of their funds from charities. But in recent years they have also been funded by official aid donors who see NGOs as an alternative effective way of reaching the poor and use them as a channel for more than ten per cent of the country's official development assistance.
While NGOs in the past have concentrated on service delivery, many more are now engaged in social mobilization and advocacy. Many have been serving as a bridge between local communities and government. Many NGOs have also transformed into money making enterprises, which calls for redefining the mission and vision of NGOs.
Bangladesh is a long way from a fully integrated system of governance. Democracy occurs sporadically. Voter turnout at elections is high: about 75 per cent in the 2001 parliamentary election, and often higher in Union Porishod election. But, after that, possibilities for participation remain limited, particularly for the poor. This development has direct roots to the nature of expenditure in elections: Election expenses are nothing but high-return investment. This raises a serious question about the efficacy of democracy to transform human deprivation into human development in Bangladesh.
The critical issues of anti-poor political economy and crisis in governance which reproduces disempowerment is a reality beyond doubt. The public sector's allocative priorities show a clear bias towards the non-poor. Even the government's much acclaimed pro-poor Food-for-Education (FFE) programme's benefit-incidence (presented at Bangladesh Development Forum 2002) analysis shows that 75 per cent of allocation to FFE do not reach households implying the incidence would actually be pro-rich. This bias points to the skewed balance of political power in favour of the more affluent segments of the population. This is clearly evident from policy level non-compliance with human welfare-orientation depicted in the pattern of public sector spending. Increasing military expenditure reduces the speed of poverty reduction and social-welfare activities. This is because, arms spending undermines human security, eating up precious resources that could have been otherwise used for human development. The lack of humane governance here is simply evident from the fact that, during the 1985-1999, military expenditure in Bangladesh increased by about 70 per cent from US $ 341 million in 1985 to US $ 580 million in 1999, whereas during the same period, NATO military expenditure fell by 25 per cent. The lack of sensibility toward any humane governance is evidenced in the pattern of scarce resource allocation where military expenditure comprises at least 40 per cent of the combined expenditure in public health and education. The real expenditure must be much higher than this official figure7. Bangladesh has bought Mig-29 fighter air crafts at a cost of US $ 150 million. The lack of humane governance is evident from the fact that this could have been otherwise used for the total eradication of TB and leprosy from Bangladesh, or that could have been used to drastically reduce the unacceptably high maternal mortality from 4.33 to 2.0 per 1000 LB, or to reduce the infant mortality rate to 35 per 1000 LB from the current level of 67, or to deploy atleast 30,000 primary school teachers for 20 years, among others.

Empowering Women: A Key to Human Development
There is an interesting paradox regarding gender relations in Bangladesh. There is an unclear understanding of empowerment of women as a process of awareness and capacity building leading to greater participation in decision making and control over her own life, although women as mothers are held in high respect at the individual level.
A significant majority of people living in absolute poverty are women, and women-headed households are among the poorest in the country. Although theoretically, the implications of poverty are same for both sexes, women are more vulnerable due to social norms and customs prevailing in the society, which tend to degrade their position from early childhood.
Non-entitlement-based dis-empowerment is evident in the fact that women of Bangladesh suffer from a vicious cycle of malnutrition. They eat last and least. Because of food deprivation malnutrition starts from infancy through childhood and continues up to later years. Poverty is not the only cause. Social prejudice and food deprivation leads to maternal and child mortality at a high rate. Her ill health implies the ill health of the future generation. Early marriage leads to early pregnancy. Almost all low-income pregnant women in Bangladesh weigh less than 50 kg. This condition leads to miscarriage, high morbidity and shortens women's life.
Women in the rural areas carry a heavy work load in the agricultural sector. Rural women participate in farming crops, horticulture, livestock, husbandry, paddy boiling, husking and drying, rearing cows, goats, chickens, ducks, fishing and carrying water, milking, collecting fuel. Unfortunately, because of patriarchal values, women's work load is not counted as agriculture work. They are not included in making decisions about the allocation of material and economic resources. Though they are over burdened by household work, the prevailing cultural norm of domestic work is not recognized as work at all. There is no reliable and comprehensive information about women's economic activity. These are very basic indicators showing status of women's disempowerment.
The female adolescent is engaged in nursing the elderly and young members in the home. Their caring labour is also non-valued. But when they fill sick they are most neglected and remain uncared. This is amply evident in the sickness reporting statistics by gender.
A large number of women are participating in wage labour migrating from rural areas. Most of them live in city slum areas and work in the garment industry. Most of the garment factories are in Dhaka. Nearly 1.5 million women work in this industry. Over 80 per cent of the total garment workers are female, of whom 50 per cent are adolescent girls. Studies on the situation of garment workers revealed low energy and nutrient intake by the working girls. They work for twelve hours on average.
Women's (poor) health in Bangladesh is a major area of neglect. Illness and deaths from complications of pregnancy, childbirth, un- safe abortion, from reproductive tract infection and from improper use of contraceptive methods top the list of health threats to women. The health of both a pregnant woman and her fetus, for example, can be severely compromised by reproductive tract infections. On the other hand, women may contract such infections, or, as the result of poor handling of childbirth or abortion procedures. Poor women are ill prepared for child bearing, an activity in which they will almost certainly engage repeatedly. And from one pregnancy to another they may never receive medical care. Lack of access to timely and effective basic maternal health care is a critical empowerment issue for women of Bangladesh, and contributes considerably to maternal mortality and morbidity. Every year about 30,000 women die in Bangladesh due to pregnancy related complications.
Son preference in Bangladesh is widespread. Women in Bangla- desh are still pressured to give birth to a son. If they do not, they have to go through several pregnancies in order to try to produce one, draining their bodies of nutrition and strength. In rural Bangladesh, a majority of people are ignorant of the fact that it is the male genes, which determine the sex of the child, and if a young woman cannot produce a son, various forms of punishment await her. She is either ill-treated, divorced or finds herself sharing the kitchen with a co-wife. If the young woman cannot give birth to a child she is blamed without any medical investigation of the husband.
According to the UNFPA State of the Women Population Report, 47 per cent of the women in Bangladesh testify to having been physically assaulted by a male partner. Such results and the fact that Bangladesh would rank second in a list of twelve countries with a high rate of violence against women caused quite a stir in the media. A recent study revealed rank the ordering of different types of VAW (prevalence during last year): verbal abuse is the most prevalent and alarming (76 per cent). The second most widely occurring type of VAW is battering (57 per cent) while the third position goes to dowry related violence (56 per cent); marital rape is also quite noticeable (44 per cent).8

Trap of Politico-economic Criminalization: Enemy of Human Development
There is no way to ensure sustainable human development without addressing the issue of sustainable empowerment of the poor and the deprived the excluded mass. This is because poverty is much more than a lack of income, and deprivation is more than just lack of physical necessities, assets and income. Other dimensions of depri- vation are physical weakness, isolation, vulnerability and power- lessness. Poverty is not only a state of deprivation, it is also a process of vulnerability. The vulnerabilities in our context are routine rather than exceptional in nature and serve to constrain opportunity frontiers, impair social identities or impose tangible economic losses. Most frequently, routine vulnerability generates a critical problem of income erosion, which may overshadow efforts at income generation (Barkat and Ahmed 2000).

In view of the fact that 70 million (out of 140) Bangladeshis live in absolute poverty - poverty eradication and breaking the deprivation trap should be the paramount thrust within the overall goal of promoting sustainable human development. Here it would be very important to internalize that human development is essentially a freedom-mediated process, whereby freedom as a condition for development includes political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security (explained in section 2).
The urgent need for poverty alleviation was powerfully made by half a million of Bangladesh's poor when they assembled outside Parliament on 1 January 1996: "Poverty alleviation should be the primary objective of all irrespective of rich or poor, Government or NGOs, class or profession and ruling party or opposition party."
In Bangladesh, informal economy is growing very fast. Those involved have very limited access to jobs created by growth. Their poverty is deep-rooted, pervasive and multi-faceted, relating not just to the absence of reliable incomes and productive assets, but also to feed, safe water, education, shelter, injustice, lack of power and to continuing daily vulnerability to disaster and disease.
From income point of view, the average per capita income remains very low at around US $ 390 in 2000. It is estimated that about 50 per cent of the population regularly consume less than 2,122 kilo calories per day, while around half of these are considered to be in extreme poverty, consuming less than the equivalent of 1,805 kilo calories per day. It is worthwhile to note that, Bangladesh has the highest incidence of poverty in South Asia and third highest number of poor in the World after China and India.
The extent of exclusion depicted in the human deprivation profile in Bangladesh is much more pronounced than one can guess. The vast absolute extent of some of the key 'deprivation' measures in our context is as follows. Out of 140 million population
· 70 million (with 60 million in rural areas) are below poverty line;
· 30 million persons are unemployed;
· 100 million people do not have access to adequate sanitation;
· 90 million people do not have access to primary health care services;
· 80 million are illiterate;
· 20 million children are not enrolled in primary and secondary schools;
· 12 million children under 5 years of age are malnourished;
· 3 million births (each year) are not attended by trained personnel;
· 2 million infants have low birth weights;
· 1.6 million children die before reaching five years of age (50 per cent of all death);
· 1.7 million children (12-23 months) are not fully immunized; and
· 110 million are denied access to electricity at their households.

The figures quoted above are sufficient enough to indicate that millions in Bangladesh lack the most basic requirements of dignified life -food, education, health care, adequate sanitation, and a safe environment which are guaranteed by the Constitution. The pre-dominant majority of our people is increasingly denied opportunities for full-life. Even worse, as would be evident later in this section, the human deprivation trend is on the rise. Thus, the humane development challenge of Bangladesh in the twenty first century is formidable.

The global HDI ranked Bangladesh 145 out of 173 countries in 2002 (UNDP, 2002). Bangladesh's HDI ranking since 1990, as reported in the global HDRs of UNDP, has dropped further down and always remained near the bottom. Thus, whatever achievements have been made in the past, human exclusion continues to be deep and pervasive. These aggregated analyses inevitably conceal considerable differences in the distribution of human development within Bangladesh. When account is taken of the unequal distribution of development, at least as it relates to income, education and longevity, Bangladesh's aggregate HDI would be reduced significantly. And, more importantly, such inequities are greatest for women.

The distribution of ownership of assets and income distribution - both are highly skewed in Bangladesh. There is no evidence to suggest that the gaps between haves and have-nots are decreasing. The opportunities to earn and control over assets are the main determinants contributing to income inequities. The most important asset in this context is land. Around two-thirds of the rural poor are landless. Between 1988 and 1995, there was little change in the two per cent proportion of land held by the bottom 40 per cent, while the top ten per cent owned around 50 per cent of the land 9. In addition, a huge share (88 per cent) of the government owned land and water-bodies known as khas land (amounting 3.3. million acres) is illegally occupied by the richer segment of the population. 10

People are migrating, one way, from rural to urban areas. This is not because they just want it. People with reliable sources of income in rural areas are less likely to migrate. Official data show that while there has been slight reduction in the percentage of poor people over the last decade, absolute numbers in both rural and urban areas have grown since the last Household Expenditure Survey (HES) in 1988-89. Also, taking a longer historical perspective, the absolute numbers of both the poor and the extreme poor have risen significantly in the last century. The challenges posed by this mass poverty are enormous. The population continues to grow by about two per cent a year and this is putting additional strain on a natural resource base that in many areas is already showing signs of breakdown. The magnitude of the challenges of human development indicated through the various dimensions of the extent of human deprivation is evident from the information contained in Table 1.

Table III. 1: Human Deprivation in Bangladesh: Selected Indicators

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Sources: Barkat A and S Akhter (2000), BDHS, HES-BBS, SYB-BBS, GOB (1999), WB, UNICEF, SPB-BBS, INFS, UNFPA, UNDP

Widening gap between the poor and non-poor is indicated through the fact that employment has increased by 36 per cent for the non-poor compared to 27 per cent for the extreme poor. Among other gaps significant are: primary school enrollment rate rises with land ownership, access to safe drinking water facilities is positively related with land ownership, and access to sanitary toilets even more so; landless, functionally landless and marginal farmers suffer more from diseases and sickness. The extent of disease and sickness induced vulnerability is much higher among poor than among the non-poor. Disease and sickness-mediated deprivation not only perpetuates poverty, but also further aggravates the extent of impoverishment.
Seven health conditions termed as diseases of poverty (by WHO), tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and perinatal conditions, childhood illness including measles, acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, and STDs, are responsible for two in three deaths among children and young adults in Bangladesh. The impact of these diseases on death and morbidity is disproportionately high for the poor compared to non-poor. The impact of the above diseases on poor occurs through the following channels (Barkat and Majid, 2001):
1. It creates consumption shocks, which adversely affect the nutrition status of children and women.
2. It deteriorates the capability of the income-poor, directly.
3. It forces the poor to pay for health services (even to the public sector)

In every aspect of human well being, women in Bangladesh are significantly worse off than men. Female-headed households are generally much more deprived and destitute than the others. The prevalence of extreme poverty is far higher amongst female-headed households whose total population may exceed five million. Over 95 per cent of these female-headed households fall below the poverty line, of which a third are amongst the hard core poor. Their incomes on average are about 50 per cent less than male-headed households even amongst the extreme poor. Also, more boys are treated at health centres, while self-treatment is more prevalent among girls; girl babies are breast fed for shorter period and that the incidence of malnutrition is higher among girls.
The adult literacy rate for the females is 76 per cent of that for the males. The mean years of formal education for females averages about 30 per cent less than males. Wages are lower for women even for the same work. In the manufacturing sector, female wage is 50 per cent less than that of male (UN, The World's Women 2000). Women face discrimination in inheritance, child custody and marriage. Violence against women continues at high levels and that laws to protect women are not enforced.
Increasing 'slumization' is a glaring example of mass impoveri isation in the urban areas (11) Medium term projection shows that urban population will share for 38 per cent of total population and will exceed 85 million in 2020, which is almost equivalent to the 1981 population of the whole country (Barkat, 2000). The urban centres in Bangladesh have significantly increased over the past two decades. The main reason for the rapid growth of population in the cities is the heavy inflow of migrants from rural areas. The vast majority of these migrants are extremely poor. Because of the interaction of rural push and urban pull factors, cities are being flooded with people looking for a job. Most of these people moving into the cities have no other place but only the slums and squatter settlements to reside in. In fact, the slums and squatters are growing at an alarming rate. The estimated total number of slums and squatter settlements (cluster) in the four metropolitan cities in Bangladesh was 3,431 with about 88 per cent in the Dhaka city alone.
Increasing landlessness, under-employment in the rural areas and the increasing job prospect in the urban areas as perceived by the rural people are the main factors to cause ceaseless migration of the rural poor to the urban informal sector and growth of slum population as well as inflationary raise in urban population. Besides, various natural disasters also influenced this migration.
With the expansion of the urban centres and increase in the urban population, the number of slums and slum dwellers are also rapidly increasing. In the city area, poor migrants preferred slum areas for their initial colony due to income scarcity and poverty of opportunity (POPI). In Dhaka city alone, there are 3,007 slums and squatters. The Dhaka population in 2010 will be about 17.6 million, up from the current of about 10 million. This projected Dhaka population is almost equivalent to the current population size of the world's second largest urban agglomeration- Sao Paulo of Brazil. According to some projections on urbanization, about 50 per cent of the total urban population will be struggling for survival in the low income settlements-referred to as slums and shanty-towns. The nature of urbanization is such that at least 50 per cent of this Dhaka urban population will be living in the slums and squatters. The size of this population being so large and the rate of growth of slums and squatters being so high have important economic, social, political, demographic and public health implications.
The slum dwellers are largely distressed migrants from the rural areas and, more importantly, most of them live below the poverty line. The problem is aggravated by the fact that the development efforts of the government targeted to the slum population are highly inadequate in most cases they are `served' less even than the rural population en masse. The slum dwellers do not have sufficient access to the education, employment and health facilities of the formal sector. Consequently, the health and nutritional status of the urban poor is even worse than that of the rural poor. Fewer than 20 per cent of school age children in Dhaka slums attend school. Infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate in the slums are also quite high compared to the national rates. It might be mentioned here that in Bangladesh, about 300 thousand children under five die of diarrhea every year, out of which one-third die in city slums and squatter settlements.The overall infant mortality rate (IMR) in Bangladesh appears relatively more favourable for urban areas than for rural areas; however, once that is disaggregated, the urban slums not only reach the highest IMR in the country but also show important gender differentials (Barkat and Akhter, 2000).
The high extent of human deprivation of the dwellers of slum and squatter settlements is clearly evident in all dimensions of life, namely life expectancy, economy, education, access to health, child health and women's health status. Although the lack of human opportunity is highly pronounced for most people in Bangladesh, the relevant values are unacceptably high in case of the slum and squatter population. In this connection, the scenario of urban slums as compared to the national situation is deplorable, and the gaps are significantly high and unacceptable in terms of the following indicators: population density, life expectancy at birth, level of poverty, prevalence of child labour, literacy, access to health facilities and sanitation, under five deaths due to diarrhea and prevalence of diarrhea, prevalence of acute respiratory infections, infant mortality rate, pregnant women's access to antenatal check-up, teenage fertility, and women's knowledge about STD/HIV/AIDS. The extent of gaps in all the human development indicators between the urban slums and the national data are indicative enough to conclude that life in the slums is full of misery, deprivation and destitution, by any standard, showing "poverty of opportunity" which is not the effect but the cause of poverty. Thus, urbanization in Bangladesh, which essentially takes the form of slumization, is showing an upward trend a clear evidence of growing urban impoverishment in Bangladesh. The above analysis implies that through so-called `urbanization', if `poverty of opportunity' continues, then the national level poverty will concentrate increasingly in the urban areas, especially in urban slums and squatter settlements.
The rapid growth of urban slums is adversely affecting the overall human developmental efforts. Even if the urban formal sector as well as the rural sector substantially develops the overall rate of economic growth and human development may not appreciably increase and the incidence of poverty may not decline if the slum population continues to grow at the existing rate. Again, even increase in the growth rate and considerable human development will not ensure improvement in the social welfare function leaving a large segment of the population, called the slum-dwellers, in deplorable socio-economic conditions. Thereby, the overall national human development will be at jeopardy and will fail to meet the genuine developmental aspirations. Apart from economic there are also social implications of the rapid growth of slums and squatter settlements. Therefore, appropriate interventions are urgently needed to combat the growth of slums, integrate the slums with the modern sector, and improve upon the life and living of slum population through all-out efforts of transforming human deprivation into human development in the slums and squatter settlement. Thus, the increasing number of poor people and adverse deprivation situation can be tackled only through vigorous implementation of rural poverty and urban poverty targeted massive interventions. These should be considered as key to sustainable human development.
To summarize the nature of human development attained by Bangladesh during the last 30 years of our development: Economic criminalization has acted as a powerful catalyst to criminalize all spheres of politics and society. We have attained a sort of perpetuating exclusion of the excluded situation; an environment aggravating the alienation process of the excluded; a scenario which has created conditions for more active denial to address the issues pertaining to the broadening of human choices for full-life (to ensure five types of freedom people shall enjoy). The balance sheet (presented below in Table 2) shows vividly that we are now caught in a culture (trap) of plundering wherein the overall environment favours everything which is against human development, which is fully in congruence with the interest of criminalization. The thirty-years' balance sheet depicts a clear tendency: The status of all indicators conducive to human development is getting worse, and indicators associated with criminalization trap are getting stronger, and thereby, limiting the scopes for broadening human choices to exercise their own free will. During the past three decades of our development we are again back to the discriminatory two-economy (with more strength): One economy is represented by only one million people who are most powerful (in the steering wheel, irrespective of who holds the formal power), and the other economy is represented by the unempowered majority, 139 million people - the excluded, deprived and distressed (According to our Constitution, "All powers in the Republic belong to the People", Article 7).

Table III: 2. Balance-sheet of Politico-economic Development of Bangladesh:
30 Years Trend

Source: Abul Barkat, 2003

Accelerating Process of Right to Development:
Needs and Doable
In terms of ensuring human development, through poverty alleviation and breaking the cycle of deprivation and people's empowerment, I hold a mixed view about the possibilities and non-possibilities. I think the following would be important to consider in our work with people aiming at accelerating the process of sustainable human development in Bangladesh:

First
Human Development is a freedom-mediated process, which is essentially an issue of structure; and pro-elite government's possible role within this structure will be subordinate to vested interest biased towards rich and mighty. The fact remains that poverty, both absolute and relative, is structural. Under the present structure 'nursing poverty' by certain class under certain social-economic-political structure is not accidental, rather a rule of the structural-game an inherent outcome of the structure itself. So, what we can do is- we can talk about poverty; we can put our research efforts to find out complicated facets of exclusion and work-out means and ways about how best and quickly to get out of the trap.
The limit is due to the fact that governance is the monopoly of the minority-rich, who have full control and command over resources; where the significant distance between the promises (in terms of pro-poor policies declared in the Five Year Plans) and realities is obvious; where due to the operation of the process of adverse inclusion the poor themselves are caught into the trap of extensive rent-seeking behaviour; where reliance on market under a free market economy is obvious which itself is never poor-friendly. All these imply that the limit to poverty eradication (absolute poverty) and poor people's empower- ment are attributable to the structure itself. As we are part of that struc- ture we can also influence the process of change.

Second
Although the boundary for poverty eradication is set within the existing socio-economic-political structure, I would strongly argue that whoever is with the poorest of the poor, is struggling for the development of the poor and closely with them, is ready to learn from the poor (get rid of professional ego and 'vanity') and to carry forward poor-people's agenda- would be able to accelerate the process of poverty alleviation and deprivation minimization, and thereby contribute to the process of sustainable human development in Bangladesh through empowering poor and ensuring five types of freedom.

Third
I would stress that the change needed is essentially philosophical and practical. By philosophy, I mean the philosophy of "human development as a freedom-mediated empowerment process"; and by practical, I mean the need for replacement of culture of dominance (of various types) by the culture of respect (to the poor) which is essential to institute empowerment of the poor and deprived.
Development, as I believe, is a process of expanding the reall freedoms that people enjoy. Development requires the removal of major sources of un-freedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states. Therefore, by addressing these major sources of un-freedom we, in fact, accelerate the process of sustainable human development.

Fourth
Since we are in search of understanding the possible ways out of poverty and deprivation, I think it would be appropriate to delineate the essence of three major dimensions of sustainable human development paradigm - equity, sustainability, and empowerment as practical inputs in our efforts to transform human deprivation. These can also be viewed as principles to follow in our work with the poor.

Equity
A powerful concept that lies at the heart of the human development paradigm. If development is to enlarge people's choices, people must enjoy equitable access to opportunities. Development without equity means a restriction of the choices of the poor and deprived individuals in the society.
Equity should be understood as equity in opportunities, not necessarily in results. Equity in access to political and economic opportunities must be regarded as a basic human right in a sustain- able human development paradigm.
Equity in access to opportunities demands a fundamental re- structuring of power. In our context, this might include (but not be limited to) the following:
· The distribution of productive assets may need to be changed, especially through agrarian and land reforms (e.g. through distribution of Khas land to the poor, through reform in the land management and administration systems, etc).
· The distribution of income may require a major restructuring through progressive fiscal policy, aimed at transferring income from the rich to the poor.
· Credit systems may need an overhaul so that poor people's potential enterprise is regarded as sound collateral and the allocation of bank credit is not guided only by the existing wealth of the affluent.
· Social and legal barriers that limit the access of women, certain minorities or ethnic groups to some of the key economic and political opportunities need to be removed.
· Political opportunities may need to be equalized through voting rights reform, campaign expenditure reform, and other actions aimed at limiting the excessive political power of minority elites and plunderers.

Sustainability
This means many things to many people. There are many front-runner concepts competing with sustainability for global linguistic recognition: self-reliance, self-sufficiency, local income generation, community ownership, sustainable livelihood etc. The concept of sustainability is sometimes confused with the renewal of natural resources, which is just one aspect of sustainable human develop- ment. It is the sustainability of human opportunities that must lie at the centre of our concerns.
Sustainability does not mean sustaining present levels of poverty and human deprivation. Since the present is miserable and unacceptable to the majority, it must be changed before it is sustained. In other words, what must be sustained are worthwhile life opportunities, not human distress and deprivation.
Sustainability of a system is the ability of that system to maintain productivity inspite of a major stress. The major stresses (or shocks) are the forces, which have immediate impact on the system's (programs) productivity. Sustainability measures the persistence or durability of the system's productivity under known or possible conditions. The dimensions to keep in mind in our efforts towards sustainable human development are presented in the box below.

In terms of the empowerment dimension, the human development paradigm is neither paternalistic nor based on charity or welfare concepts. Its focus is on development by the people, who must participate in the activities, events and processes that shape their lives. The worst policy prescription for poor people is to place them on permanent charity. Such a strategy is neither consistent with human dignity nor sustainable over time. That is why the sustainable human development paradigm envisages full empowerment of the people.
Empowerment means that people are in a position to exercise choices of their own free will. It implies a political democracy in which people can influence decisions about their lives.
Empowerment presupposes decentralization of power so that real governance is brought to the doorstep of every person. It means that all members of civil society participate fully in making and implementing decisions.
In terms of ensuring equality, equity and empowerment of women, exclusive concentration on just 'well-being' aspects is not enough to ensure development mediated through empowerment. Now it is time to broaden the so-called 'welfarist' focus to incorporate- and emphasize- the active role of women's agency (Sen, 1999). The whole effort of bringing about women's empowerment should be targeted to transform women from 'less than equal' to at least 'equal to one'. And in our efforts to and designs of women development programmes, women should no more be seen as passive recipients of welfare-enhancing help, they should rather be seen as active agents of change - the dynamic promoters of social transformations that can alter the lives of both women and men.

Fifth
In Bangladesh, the extent of human deprivation with all its dimensions within the politico-economic criminalized structure is not only huge, but also the trend in terms of absolute size is on the rise. The successes of past efforts officially directed towards alleviation of human deprivation are highly questionable. The efforts of the past govern- ments, pro-poor NGOs (INGOs and NNGOs) and private individuals are only encouraging in the sense of understanding and setting of some of the possible pathways for transforming human deprivation into human development. What we have learned from the deprived is - despite many vulnerabilities the poor people survive and they have their own coping strategy. Lack of access to financial, political, infrastructural, natural and information sources leaves most of these people at the margins of subsistence. It is obvious that a greater say in the decision-making processes would release poor people's talent and latent potentials for positive transformation. What the deprived people require is more opportunity, not welfare handouts.

Now, to recapitulate the key message that 'sustained human development' as a process of expanding choices should be mediated through real freedoms that people enjoy, in which poor people's empowerment has a central role to play. Thus, 'sustainable human development' should be freedom-mediated and empowerment-mediated. SHD needs to be viewed as a process mediated through five distinct types of freedom- political, economic, social, transparency, and protective security- and all associated dimensions of empowerment which will break the 'deprivation trap', ultimately (shown below). SHD should ensure fully the process of inclusion of the excluded in development (adverse inclusion should be stopped at any cost). Finally, I think, as an individual, as a citizen, and as a member of civil society, we all have a role to play in accelerating sustained process of the inclusion of excluded for human development in Bangladesh. And by way of our participation in this process we will become a conscious part of the history of 'transformation of human deprivation'. And we can expedite the whole process, even within our limited scale of public action, if we believe and practice the 3C Paradigm: CONCERN, COMMITMENT and COMPETENCE.

Annex I: The Millennium Development Goals, targets and indicators

* Abul Barkat is Professor, Department of Economics, Dhaka University & General Secretary, Bangladesh Economic Association.

Notes

1. Atkinson, 1987, 1989; Ravallion, 1992.
2. Filmer and Pritchett, 1998; Montgomery et al., 2000; Sahn and Stifel, 2000.
3. Falkingham and Namazie, 2002
4. Sen, 1985, 1987; McKinley 1997; Micklewright and Stewart, 2001.
5. Grosh and Munoz, 1996; Grosh and Glewwe, 2000.
6. A recent National Seminar of the Bangladesh Economic Association reported that 75% of the total aid (loan and grant) flow to the government, during the last 30 years, was misappropriated and misused ;BEA, Dhaka: February 10, 2001; See Barkat, 2001.
7. Islam and Barkat, 2001.
8. Barkat et. al, 1999.
9. Barkat and Ahmed, 2000.
10. Barkat, Zaman and Raihan, 2001.
11. Barkat and Akhter, 2001.

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