Immediately after taking office, the present Government, besides identifying the priority areas of reform, took up the task of preparing a 'National strategy for Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction and Social Development' in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In preparing this strategy document a wide consultation process was undertaken at the national level and local level including consultation with the experts and stakeholders. A preliminary draft of the document was put in place in April 2002. Based on this draft a comprehensive dialogue took place with the Government and non-government organisations, representatives from the civil society and the development partners. In the light of the feedback received a revised draft was prepared in January 2003. In March 2003, the draft was finalised after certain amendments.

The cardinal objective of the development strategy articulated in the document will be to make sure that benefits of growth are shared by the poor. The strategy document lays emphasis on the following five major strategies:

• Acceleration of pro-poor growth

• Promotion of good governance

• Investment in human development

• Women development; and

• Ensuring social security.

Acceleration of Pro-poor Growth

In the strategy document, a target of raising economic growth from 5.0 percent to 6-7 percent has been set so that the proportion of poor people can be reduced by half by 2015. The other important segments of the strategy include:

• a stable macroeconomic framework

• development of private sector

• sound and effective financial systems

• strengthening institutional capacity

• rural development

• expansion of productive sectors

• improvement of existing capacity and quality of infrastructure development.

Promotion of Good Governance

The second important element of the strategy is establishing good governance in all spheres. Wit this end in view, the Government has planned to bring in judicial refonl1s to infuse dynamism i the judicial process, to bring about basic reforms to this in police administration and to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of public resources.

Investment in Human Development

As the development of human resources has strong poverty reducing effects, the Government lays special emphasis on enhancing the basic capacity of the poor by way of strengthening the health, education and nutrition programmes. To implement the strategy, the Government has already: allocated substantial resources for expansion of education, particularly the primary education. As a result, there has been quantitative expansion in education but the health and nutrition programmes relatively lag behind. In the present strategy pursued by the Government, these two areas are having greater importance. Overall, the Government will divert and allocate more resources to all the programmes relating human resource development.

Women Development

The burden of poverty falls disproportionately on women due to a numbers of factors such as literacy rate, low nutrition, low and discriminatory wages and high mortality. Empowering women is critically important for socio-economic development. The degree of women empowerment is measured in terms of their access to education, participation in workforce, property rights, participation in politics and access to credit. Although Bangladesh has made much progress in this area, it leaves much to be desired. Against this backdrop, the strategy paper lays emphasis on:

• policies and institutional actions to close the gender gap

• reduce violence against women

• reduce high maternal mortality

• remove hindrances to women's employment and economic opportunities . implement policies to ensure formal equality

• support affirmative actions at all levels and in all spheres

• create women-friendly institutional environment.

The Government in order to ensure greater participation of women in all spheres of development within the framework of poverty reduction strategy, will actively promote appropriate policies and programmes.

Ensuring Social Protection

Four sets of policies would be emphasized for the poor to cope better with various income shocks. These policies would increase the crisis -coping capacity of the poor.

• The first set of policies will focus on the social safety net for the poor through food for works and income transfer programmes (e.g. VGD/IG-VGD, FFW/TR, old-age pension schemes in rural areas, support for the female destitutes and traditional relief programmes) to address the specific problems of chronic poverty and socially disadvantaged groups (e.g. street children, elderly poor, the disabled population etc.).

• The second set of policies will address the vulnerabilities of 'new poor' like the retrenched workers. This form an increasingly important component of the social protection policies in the backdrop of privatization, labour restructuring, market.

• The third set of policies will put emphasis on the development of social solidarity as an increasingly important route for social interventions. The newly set up umbrella support organization such as the Social Development Foundation (SDF) will play an important role in fostering social capital formation by promoting CBOs and local associations in building and maintenance of small-scale community infrastructures.

• The fourth set of policies will relate to risks insurance covering four categories: (a) providing access to credit to the poor in times of emergency to ease the burden of shocks; (b) ensuring good public health services to reduce health hazard related income and consumption shocks; (c) strengthening disaster preventing and mitigating mechanisms to enhance the coping capability of the poor in times of natural disasters; and (d) introducing effective measures to minimize suffering from violence and personal insecurity.

In the strategy document, there is an elaborate framework for monitoring and assessing the poverty reduction programmes. Within this framework a National Poverty Alleviation Council' headed by the Hon'ble Prime Minister has been formed. Besides this, a Focal Point has been established in the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission which has been entrusted with the task of collecting all data and information on the progress of poverty reduction programmes.