Child Equity Atlas - BIDS

Child Equity Atlas
2011-2015 prioritizes programmes to reach the
47 million people living below the poverty line.
A significant proportion of the poor are living in
households which are female headed, in remote
areas, and consisting of socially excluded and
other vulnerable people. Their access to secondary
and tertiary education is limited and the quality of
education at all levels is deficient. The Government
recognized that a large segment of the population
is severely disadvantaged in terms of ownership of
assets and has inadequate access to institutional
finance as well as to basic services including quality
education, healthcare, water and sanitation. These
people, and among them especially women and
children, are also disproportionately affected
by natural disasters and the adverse effects of
climate change. Despite expansion, publicly
supported mitigating measures in the form of
social protection programmes are numerous but
still inadequate and insufficiently child sensitive or
equity focused.
1.0.7 To make evidence based policy and budget
decisions, the general public and policy makers
need to visualize social deprivation issues at
administrative levels to show the persisting
inequalities and pockets of entrenched social
deprivations. For Bangladesh’s growth and
development to be socially inclusive, equity issues
need to be unpacked at geographic levels that
engender mutual accountability for all stakeholders
– civil society, local leaders, private sector
practitioners, and Government and development
partners. The understanding of existing social
inequalities will gauge the success of existing
policies and serve as a basis for subsequent policy
reform, and investment decisions.
1.0.8 The Government of Bangladesh and its
partners invested a lot of resources to complete
the Population and Housing Census 2011
(commonly known as Population Census 2011)
and validated the Census results. The Census
data is a vital source for development planning
and policy. The availability of the 2011 Census
data, to the individual and household levels,
offers scope for a low cost approach to equity
based policy analysis and advocacy for reducing
inequality.
1.0.9 Hence this study – in a tripartite partnership
between the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics
(BBS), Bangladesh Institute of Development
Studies (BIDS), and UNICEF – analysed the 2011
census data, with the following objectives.
1.1 Objectives and Scope
1.1.1 The overall objective of the study is to
analyse the 2011 Census data to understand
the patterns of social inequalities, identify areas
of progress and persisting pockets of social
deprivation; and engender evidence based
dialogue and informed decisions to increase
the equity focus of social development policies
and programmes for equitable realization of the
socioeconomic rights of children and women in
Bangladesh.
1.1.2 Specific objectives of the study include the
following:
1. Harness the detailed information available
in the census, done once in 10 years, to
have reliable data at levels below districts
at virtually no additional cost.
2. Make the census data more accessible,
user friendly so as to unearth child
centered inequities such as girls married
between 15 to 19 years, “real child worker”,
etc. in graphs and maps.
4