Dynamics of food-assisted development strategies in Bangladesh

This paper examines the dynamics of food-assisted development strategies in Bangladesh focusing on the ultra-poor women and children. The magnitude of poverty and malnutrition has been examined to determine how chronic food insecurity and malnutrition deter the ultra-poor from taking active part in the mainstream development programmes in Bangladesh. Forces and factors that led to policy and programme shifts over the years, including the imperatives of national development experience, World Food Summit 1996 and the Enabling Development Approach of World Food Program, have been scrutinised in order to suggest strategies for directing food assistance more intensely towards community and human resource development, instead of physical or infrastructure development, as done in the past benefiting more the non-poor than the poor.