Country profile

Bangladesh      New Zealand Capital Dhaka Wellington Population 141.8 million 4.1 million Official language/s Bangla English and Maori Per capita income US$470 US$27,250 NZ$1=US$0.70 NZ$641 NZ$38,928 Life expectancy 64 years 80 years Under 5 mortality rate 73/1000 5/1000 Adult literacy 41% 99% (Source: UNICEF The State of the World's Children 2008)

People
About 98 per cent of Bangladesh’s population are ethnic Bengali. Minority groups include Urdu-speaking, non-Bengali Muslims and various tribal groups. About three-quarters of the population live in rural villages.

Most Bangladeshis are Muslims, but Hindus constitute a sizable minority. There are also some Buddhists, Christians and Animists.

History
From the 1200s, Bangladesh was under Muslim rule. The region became part of the Indian state of Bengal. When India gained independence from Britain in 1947, East Bengal became known as East Pakistan. It was governed from West Pakistan, on the other side of India.

Despite their common religion (Islam), the economic, linguistic, cultural and ethnic differences between East and West Pakistan led to a short but savage war in 1971. Following the war, East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh. Since then the nation has gone through periods of political turmoil and endured a number of natural disasters.

Geography
Bangladesh has a monsoon climate with seasonal rainfall, warm temperatures and high humidity. Approximately 90 per cent of the land is lower than 10 metres above sea level, making it vulnerable to cyclones, floods and tsunamis.

The monsoon season lasts from late May to early October. The coldest time of year is from mid-October to the end of February, and the hottest from mid-March to May.

Economy
Bangladesh’s main resources include its vast labour force, rich agricultural land and substantial reserves of natural gas. Nearly two-thirds of the population is involved in agriculture, but manufacturing and services are the main contributors to the economy. Manufacture of garments accounts for three-quarters of export income; more than 80 per cent of workers in this sector are female. Millions of people seek work in other Muslim countries and send remittances home. However, nearly 40 per cent of the population lives on less than US$1 per day.

Agriculture
Bangladesh has highly fertile alluvial soils but agriculture is regularly disrupted by floods and droughts. While farmers are largely reliant on erratic monsoon cycles, there is increasing use of irrigation. Rice and jute are the main crops, with wheat gaining greater importance.

Education
Children begin school from age 6. They must pass each of the five primary school levels for promotion to the next level. High school lasts five years, followed by two years of senior secondary schooling. As the average class size is 60, children receive little personal attention during lessons.

Nearly all girls and boys enroll in primary school, but many repeat levels or drop out. Distance from school is a concern for some children, while others cannot afford uniforms or study materials.

Health
Over the past 30 years, Bangladesh has made a concerted effort to expand primary health care facilities and improve the health of its citizens. However, malnutrition and diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS remain significant threats. Much of the country’s groundwater contains naturally occurring arsenic. Although maternal mortality has gradually decreased, the rate is still high with 380 mothers dying for every 100,000 live births.

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Bangladesh COUNTRY UPDATE

FEEDING THE FAMILY

In Bangladesh, 48 per cent of children under 5 are moderately or severely underweight.

UNICEF State of the World’s Children Report, 2008

While media attention on the current world food crisis may call to mind disturbing images of severely malnourished children, in many countries malnutrition is affecting people’s lives in ways that aren’t so obvious.

Poor nutrition leads to poor health, and the more often people are sick, the less they can work. When calorie consumption is less than adequate, this also reduces the amount of work people can do; low energy levels make each daily activity take longer, reducing the number of things that can be achieved – fewer fields can be ploughed, less water collected, and less time left for social or income-generating activities.

It is a cruel cycle – with little energy, people produce less food, which gives them and their families less to eat and thus even less energy.

Malnutrition is particularly hard on children. A lack of nutrients early in life affects a child’s development. Poor nutrition leads to poor health and increased susceptibility to infections, and so malnourished children get sick more frequently than healthy children – and some die as a result.

In many of the countries World Vision works in, it is the lack of a reliable source of food – food insecurity – that leads to children being malnourished. But even in areas where families do have enough food, there are still malnourished children. The reason is malnutrition can be caused not just by poverty but also by a lack of knowledge. Many parents don't know how to make healthy recipes or can't identify the symptoms of malnutrition.

In Bangladesh, World Vision’s Area Development Programmes (ADPs) are using the Hearth Programme to address this. It is a concept World Vision has used successfully around the world and is based on the premise that in every community, well-nourished and malnourished children exist, despite living in similar socio-economic conditions. Mothers with well-nourished children volunteer to teach mothers with poorly nourished children how to care for and improve the health of their child. They get together to socialise and cook for their children as a group. The mothers with malnourished children learn from the mothers of healthy children by observing, talking and getting involved in the cooking process. They continue to feed their children together in this way until the malnourished children have gained sufficient weight.

This approach empowers communities to find sustainable solutions to their problems, because they are using local knowledge and local ingredients.