For the first time in Bangladesh, the Food Security Assessment and Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) Survey 2023 is conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). It is a nationally representative survey hoping to provide evidence-based data and information on food security, nutrition statistics, socioeconomic characteristics, and coping strategies. The overall sample size was 29,760 dwelling households over 1488 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) across eight administrative divisions covering rural, urban, and city corporation areas in each division. It primarily focuses on bridging the data gap for the food and nutrition sector as stressed in SDG 02, and providing essential data for agriculture-related sectors, a national priority of the 7th Five-Year Plan.
FIES assessment, being the principal component of the survey, reveals some striking findings about food security, and nutrition scenarios in Bangladesh. It is reported that as a percentage of households ‘severe insecurity’ and ‘moderate or severe insecurity’ are the highest in rural areas with 0.92% and 23.89% respectively followed by the urban and city corporation areas. At the national level, these are reported as 0.82% and 21.92%. At the divisional level, the three most ‘moderately or severely insecure’ regions are Rangpur Division with 29.53% followed by Mymensingh and Sylhet with 28.10% and 27.42% respectively. The least ‘moderately or severely insecure’ regions are Dhaka (17.05%) and Chittagong (19.04). Sylhet also tops the list for ‘severe insecurity’ with 1.37% followed by, interestingly, Chittagong with 1.11%. Households with Remittance and Industry as a main source of income experienced the least ‘moderate or severe insecurity’ with 18.91% and 19.09% respectively while the agrarian households faced the highest insecurity amounting to 26.13%. It also coincides with the fact that divisions, such as Rangpur, Mymensingh, etc., with the most insecurity, also receive considerably lower remittances. Moreover, households with Kutcha dwellings, open water bodies as a source of drinking water, and lying in the ‘poorest’ and ‘poorer’ income quantiles seem to experience the highest ‘moderate or severe insecurity’. At the national level, 25.5% of the households had to borrow to meet their basic food needs, though the borrowing percentage in the rural areas is slightly higher than the national estimate.
Looking into the household and population characteristics, the national average for household size is 4.09 which is roughly the same for rural and urban areas except the city corporations (3.88). However, the percentage of nuclear families (2-3 members) is concentrated more in the city corporation areas with a 5.77% increase from that of rural areas. The traditional large and combined families are remarkably on the decline with only 1.12%, which was once one of the dominant features of rural agrarian families. It is evident from the national level estimates that nuclear (2-3 members) and moderate (4-5 members) families have gradually become the mainstream with 34.29% and 47.50% respectively.
Secondly, the contrast in the tenureship of the households in the city corporation areas between ‘owned’ and ‘rented’ types is significant with a 46.22% difference where most of the households are rented (72.07%). On the other hand, in rural areas as high as 93.89% of households are owned. This phenomenon can be linked to the nature of work, income-generating sectors and their locations, and the steady internal migration into the cities where most of the industrial and service-oriented activities occur. It makes sense if we consider the main sources of household income. The industrial and service-oriented activities are mostly concentrated in the city corporation areas with 18.02% and 74.56% whereas, in the rural areas, it is merely 6.34% and moderately 40.06%, respectively. Even in the urban areas, the extent of household income from industry is only 8.37%. The industrial expansion in terms of the income-generating sector is lagging significantly compared to that of agriculture or service.
Another interesting finding from the electricity consumption is that the share of solar power in the rural, urban, and city corporation areas is meager at 1.43%, 1.34%, and 0.19%, respectively, whereas most of the power consumption comes from the national grid. This underscores the necessity of the expansion of off-grid solar power systems across regions to develop self-sufficiency, improve energy security, cut down the ever-increasing grid expansion and management costs, and finally, mitigate the load-shedding crisis.
In the last two decades, Bangladesh has improved in many macroeconomic areas tremendously, namely GDP growth, BOP accounts, foreign reserves, export earnings, employment generation, remittances, etc., however, this assessment unveils some very pressing multidimensional issues related to poverty, inequality, regional disparity, sectoral income-generating capacities, and, above all, dynamics of food security, public health, and overall standard of living. To overcome these hurdles, very specific policy tools and robust implementation measures need to be administered with concerted efforts coordinating all the relevant ministries and stakeholders. Attention should be prioritized to the Rangpur and Mymensingh divisions as their performance in most of the parameters is almost dismal. The coverage of Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) should be extended to the most vulnerable groups on a priority basis.
Furthermore, since this FIES Survey was conducted in June 2023, it would be more befitting if the survey could incorporate the impact of COVID-19 on food insecurity status as well as the responses and coping mechanisms of households facing ongoing inflationary shocks. It also lacks crucial insights related to the current status of coverage of Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) in the ‘severe insecurity’ and ‘moderate or severe insecurity’ groups across domains. It needs to be investigated further to reflect the gendered and youth perspectives in the food security and nutrition spectrum to maintain the necessary inclusivity criteria.
To conclude, this survey marks a crucial step towards evidence-based policymaking and intervention practices and bridging the excruciating data gap in the underlying sectors. We hope that by overcoming the existing limitations the FIES Survey will provide us with more revealing insights and policy indications in the future.
This article was first published in the Thinking Aloud on 1 July 2024
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