The vision 2021 plan and the associatedperspective plan 2010-2021, adopted by the Government ofBangladesh lay out a series of development targets for 2021.Among the core targets identified to monitor the progresstoward the vision 2021 objectives is that of attaining apoverty headcount of 14 percent by 2021. The purpose of thispaper is to answer the following question: givenBangladesh's performance in poverty reduction over thelast decades, can the author expect the proportion of thecountry's population living in poverty to be 14 percentby 2022? Using data from the last three household income andexpenditures survey, we examine changes in poverty ratesduring 2000-2010, estimate net elasticity of povertyreduction to growth in per-capita expenditure, and thenproject poverty headcounts into the future. Our povertyprojections based on the last three Household Income andExpenditure Surveys (HIES) surveys suggest that Bangladeshwill achieve its Millennium Development Goal, or MDG goal ofhalving its poverty headcount to 28.5 percent by 2015significantly ahead of schedule. Attaining the vision 2021poverty target of 14 percent by 2021, however, is lesscertain as it requires a Gross Domestic Product, or GDPgrowth of at least 8 percent, or more than 2 percentagepoints higher than that observed in recent years.
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