Despite remarkable progress in poverty reduction, extreme poverty in Bangladesh remains high. Over the last decade, Bangladesh has experienced resilient GDP growth, averaging a rate of 6 percent per year. Poverty rates have also demonstrated an impressive steady improvement during this period with an average decline of 1.75 percentage points per year. An average decline of this rate out-performs a good number of other countries. Poverty fell from 48.9 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2005 and to 31.5 percent in 2010. Coupled with this substantial decrease in the poverty rate Bangladesh made steady progress in human development as characterized by better nutrition outcomes, increased literacy, and improved access to supply water and living conditions. While this overall consistent improvement in wellbeing is encouraging, poverty continues to be a substantial and stubborn problem with around 26 million people still living in extreme poverty in a country with a population size of 148 million. 

The Government of Bangladesh recognizes that shocks and vulnerability are mainstream problems for the poor. To address chronic poverty and vulnerability, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) implements a large number of public social safety net (SSN) programs of varying sizes.