Extreme Poor Adivasis and the Problem of Accessing Social Safety Nets. Shiree Working Paper No. 4.

Abstract

Under the auspices of AMADER Project, this study was conducted in two unions of the high Barind area in Naogaon District in Bangladesh. Efforts were made to explore the factors behind the extremely poor Adivasis’ (meaning indigenous people) scarce access to government-funded social safety nets. Quantitative analysis reveals that the number of recipients of SSNs is small in the two studied Unions – Shapahar and Goala – standing at 3 at out of 74 deserving Beneficiary Households (BHHs) and 4 out of 65 deserving BHHs respectively.

Three key problems define Adivasis’ exclusion from SSNs– their exclusion from information, the fact that they are not considered politically important, and the on-going cultural labelling of Adivasis as ‘underserving poor’. With the view to identifying solutions to improve the SSN coverage of the extremely poor Adivasis, recommendations have been drawn from the interviews with gate-keepers and informants.

Citation

Hossain, Z. Extreme Poor Adivasis and the Problem of Accessing Social Safety Nets. Shiree Working Paper No. 4. Shiree, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2011) 38 pp.

Extreme Poor Adivasis and the Problem of Accessing Social Safety Nets. Shiree Working Paper No. 4.

Published 1 January 2011