Presentation

Abstract

Bangladesh is encountered with the acute problem of poverty. Poverty is correlated to various problems such as unemployment, deprivation of basic needs, i.e., food, health, education, shelter etc. Poverty-focused programmes undertaken by the government during the past could not make significant headway in alleviating poverty in Bangladesh. In the backdrop of the negligible success of the government sponsored poverty-focused programmes to alleviate poverty, the microcredit organizations (MCOs) have taken a key role in poverty alleviation efforts. By reaching the poor, we mean not only an improved access to microcredit, but also its favorable impact on the poor. The question now arises as to whether microcredit initiative has been able to contribute positively to the well-being of the poor people in Bangladesh. This paper is an attempt to document the contribution of microcredit programmes towards the alleviation of poverty of the landless poor people in Bangladesh. For this study, some major microcredit organizations (MCOs), i.e., Grameen Bank, BRAC and others have been selected.

Objective

The main objective of this assingment is to prove that microcredit programmes are able to bring favorable changes in the lives of the poor households in Bangladesh. Microcredit programmes provide poor households with the minimum collateral-free capital to improve their employment status. Through improving employment status poor households increase their income, consumption and thus, improve the fulfillment of basic needs (education, health, nutrition and income etc).Gradually, these households move from below to above the poverty line, i.e. poverty of the borrowing households alleviates.

Within this main objective, three secondary objectives also have been examined:

(a) Microcredit programme improves the employment status of the poor households and

increase their income.

(b) Microcredit programme improves the consumption pattern of the poor households....