The Department for International Development (DFID) in the last one year lifted 258,000 men, women and children in Bangladesh out of extreme poverty through direct transfer of assets, like livestock, and training that helped them set up viable businesses.
DFID’s Annual Report and Account for 2012-2013 published recently, shows that UK investment in overseas development is saving lives, creating jobs, building economies and ultimately helping create a safer and more prosperous world.
“With two years left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the report also reflects the department’s priorities as we approach that milestone,” said a British High Commission release on Thursday.
Looking ahead to the coming years, there will be an even greater focus on three key areas, the release said.
The DFID thinks no country can properly develop if half of its population — girls and women — is being left behind. “We want to end aid dependency through jobs.”
It also said DFID’s first responsibility will always be to save lives under imminent threat.
DFID-Bangladesh Country Representative Sarah Cooke said, “We’re committed to Bangladesh’s development and ambition of achieving middle-income status within the next decade.”
UK investment in the last year has helped transform many lives for the better, Cooke said adding, “We monitor closely the performance of all programmes and make appropriate adjustments to ensure every pound is well spent.”
In Bangladesh, DFID has provided 658,000 poor people with access to clean drinking water, 1.3 million poor people with access to adequate sanitation, support to enable the Government to register an additional 280,000 tax payers, developed early warning systems for floods and cyclones, covering 24 million people in the last year.
It also provided 546,000 extreme poor people with direct cash transfers, supported 120,000 babies to be delivered with the help of nurses, midwives and doctors, provided nutrition support to 207,000 children under 5 and pregnant women, provided modern methods of family planning to 131,000 additional women, supported more than 800,000 children each year in primary education.
The DFID, during the period, helped 1.4 million farmers to raise their collective income by over $127 million over the course of several years of market development and financial services programmes.