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Speakers at a dialogue yesterday suggested giving special attention to some pockets of extreme poverty in the government-NGO effort to help people come out of poverty.

The recommended measures include land reform, providing more subsidy to agriculture sector, crop diversification and ensuring fair prices of agricultural produce.

Besides, the discussants came up with suggestions on decentralisation of administration, empowerment of the local government and expansion of non-farming activities.

The keynote paper presented at the dialogue identified some of the vulnerable areas reeling under extreme poverty in spite of continuous poverty reduction efforts.

Dr Mahabub Hossain, head of the Social Science Division of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), presented the paper at the dialogue on 'Mapping poverty for rural Bangladesh: Implications for pro-poor development.'

He suggested initiating non-farming activities in the low-lying areas where people remain extreme poor mainly because of flashflood.

The country's main low-lying areas where extreme poverty exists are in Mymensingh and Sunamganj districts, Hossain said.

The identification of poverty pockets will help measure the geographical inequality while implementing the poverty reduction strategy, he added.

Hossain said channelling national resources to the needy is the key challenge for the government's interim poverty reduction strategy.

Despite improvement in overall poverty alleviation in Bangladesh over the past few decades, still there exist large inequalities in living standard of people, he observed.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a local think-tank, organised the dialogue in cooperation with IRRI at Cirdap auditorium in Dhaka.

Chairing the dialogue, CPD Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan said not a single area in Bangladesh could be freed from poverty even after 30 years of independence.

Mushfiqur Rahman, MP, said poverty exists in our country though many steps have been taken. He called for a political consensus for alleviating poverty.

"For reduction of poverty, our economy should grow at seven to eight percent every year," he observed. "But it is very difficult to enhance the rate from existing six percent."

Economist Binayak Sen said some areas in the country persistently remained in a poverty trap. "These areas need special attention from the government and policymakers."

He pointed out that none of the major NGOs had taken the responsibility of preventing 'monga' in northern districts though they operate in those areas.

President of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) Hasanul Haque Inu said poverty could not be eliminated as all the governments ignored the rural economy.

He proposed a number of measures for poverty alleviation including massive reform in the land administration and giving more subsidy to the farm sector.

Economist Atiur Rahman said even Sylhet region is not free from poverty though a huge amount of remittance comes from expatriates of this region.