The basic needs approach : its place in planning for core needs in Bangladesh's development strategy

Abstract

This study is concerned with exploring the prospect of adopting the Basic Needs Approach as a tool of development strategy for Bangladesh. It is suggested that food, health and education constitute the core of a basic needs programme. Also, development planning should be reoriented to meet these core needs as a step to economic development. As a method of examining the magnitudes of these core needs at the end of the century, as a guidance to target-setting and planning, the study uses projections under varying assumptions. In this illustrative study attempts have been made to bring out the relevant policy directions. The major conclusion of this study is that the key to successfully meeting basic needs lie in curbing population growth, and increasing productivity of food output. Redistributing income in favour of the poor is obviously required but has not been explicitly examined in the study. The major policy implication is that detailed policies should be formulated and rigorously implemented for population control and raising productivity of the food sub-sector, aiming also at increasing the valueadded share of the poor.