IFPRI City Profiles Bangladesh Jessore and Tongi Urban Livelihoods in the Slums Until recently the great bulk of Jessore and Tongi City Slum Profiles international and domestic Jessore Tongi development monies spent in Location Southwest, 50 25 km north of Bangladesh have focused on km from Dhaka Bang/ India improving rural economic border City prospects and thwarting rural- Population urban migration. Despite these (2000) 270,000 (est.) 56,689 (est.) efforts, the country continues to Average experience one of the highest household size Tongi 4.8 4.6 urban growth rates in the world - with (persons) the population in some cities growing Dhaka Per capita faster than 8 percent per year and Jessore income Tk 625 Tk 640 (median ($11.45) ($11.73) doubling in less than a decade. monthly) Economic, social service and Employment infrastructure development has severely status (% with Male- 69% Male- 69% a job, 10+ yrs) Female- 20% Female- 32% lagged population growth, leaving more than 60 percent of the country's urban Literacy rate (7+yrs) Male- 66% Male- 56% residents in absolute poverty. In this Female- 52% Female- 44% densely populated nation regularly battered by Malnutrition (stunting 5 yrs Male- 40% Male- 41% floods and other natural disasters, the deprivation and younger) Female- 33% Female- 49% faced by the poor and the opportunities available to % Women 27% 35% them to improve their lives can vary by city. To underweight assist in the goal of fine-tuning intervention CARE and IFPRI, 2001 strategies, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is currently collaborating with CARE in an examination of urban poverty in different settings in Bangladesh. In 2000, surveys of vulnerable urban households were conducted in selected slums ("bastis" in Bangla) and low-income settlements of two secondary cities: Jessore, a city in southwestern Bangladesh along the main transport route to India; and Tongi, an industrial "suburb" of the largest city, the capital Dhaka. Conditions in Jessore and Tongi In Jessore, poor households tend to be dispersed throughout the city, with slums located alongside middle-class and well-off neighborhoods. In Tongi, on the other hand, the poor live in sprawling but distinct slums or settlements that are isolated from neighboring communities. Sixty percent of Tongi's households, for instance, live in the crowded neighborhood of Ershadnagar, which was built by the government in the mid-1970s specifically to house the poor. .