The speakers were participating in the first day of a three-day conference titled 'What works for the poorest? Knowledge, policies and practices', organised by Brac at its Mohakhali head office in collaboration with Chronic Poverty Research Centre and Manchester University's Brooks World Poverty Institute.

Citing a collaborative study by the World Bank and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank's Hassan Zaman noted, "We are seeing an emerging east-west divide in reducing poverty in Bangladesh, where the country's western regions Khulna, Rajshahi and Barisal are not doing as well as the eastern regions Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet."

Changes in divisional poverty headcounts between 2000 and 2005 show that in the eastern division of Dhaka poverty has reduced from 46.7 percent to 32 percent, in Chittagong from 45.7 percent to 34 percent, and in Sylhet from 42.4 percent to 33.8 percent, Zaman said in his presentation titled 'Poverty and inequality trends in Bangladesh: Insights from the 2005 household income and expenditure survey'.

While in the western divisions poverty has increased from 45.1 percent to 45.7 percent, in Khulna and Rajshahi poverty has been reduced by only 5.5 percent bringing it down to 51.2 percent from 56.7 percent. Barisal has also experienced a mere 1.1 percent decline in poverty from 53.1 percent coming down to 52 percent, the study found.

In the inaugural session, Finance and Planning Adviser to the Caretaker Government Akbar Ali Khan said, given that poverty is heterogeneous, a diverse set of development tools need to be implemented to complement the highly effective and laudable micro-credit programmes.

Brac founder and Chairperson Fazle Hasan Abed, who chaired the inaugural session, called for a shift of focus to the opportunities in 'new architecture of aid', where new schemes such as the global premium bonds and new airline taxes are examples why the focus on development finance has to move from the micro to the macro level.

He also urged for new ways to reduce dependence on external funds and stressed the need for greater evaluation of programmes to make all policies more 'evidence based'.

Cornell University's economist Ravi Kanbur presented the keynote address, titled 'Membership based organisations of the poor: Concepts, experience and policy', where he noted a greater need for the poor to be included in public policy making.

International academics, policy-makers, bureaucrats and development workers have gathered to participate in the three-day meet to share their knowledge and experience in the fields of health, knowledge, elite perceptions of poverty, education, and programmes in addition to micro-credit.

The Daily Star is one of the media partners of the conference along with Channel i, while the sponsors are the UK's Department for International Development, Canadian International Development Agency, and Aga Khan Foundation.