The Human Development Report is about poverty reduction and human development in Bangladesh.

Poverty is defined here in the multidimensional space, encompassing both income and non-income dimensions. Deprivations may be measured in terms of lack of command over a range of private and publicly provided assets. There are six such types: physical, human, financial, social, political, and natural.

There is widespread feminisation of poverty in both rural and urban Bangladesh. But, the issue goes beyond the familiar income poverty rate differentials between female-headed and male-headed households. The more pertinent issue is the heightened vulnerability of poor women even when she is earning better than before following inclusion in some income earning jobs. Violence against women has particularly increased in recent years, directly affecting the freedom and human rights of women in general and poor women in particular who are more subjected to such harassment.

The male advantage over female life expectancy is persisting. Maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh remains quite high.

The gender gap in gross enrollment at the primary level has significantly narrowed down.

Considerable gender gap persists in the nutritional status. Much of this deprivation is the result of long-term discrimination, reflective of considerable gender-based intra-household inequality in health care and nutritional support, which needs to be addressed socially and via appropriate empowerment supporting policies strengthening the status of women.

Women’s empowerment leads to lower fertility, better antenatal and neonatal care, and lower infant mortality. It also reduces the incidence of low birth-weight babies - a major factor of child malnutrition. A higher nutritional status of children associated with better maternal health status and women’s empowerment is conducive to better performance of children in schools, higher human capital formation, with strong productivity effect.

Women’s empowerment has important social and economic effects. Higher literacy, greater property rights, higher work force participation, access to credit, greater scope for political participation at various levels of representation are important measures of raising the level of women’s empowerment.