Background: Poverty persists at an alarming level in Bangladesh. To reduce extreme poverty and create the
foundation for a sustainable livelihood change, BRAC undertook a targeted programme since 2002 named,
Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR/TUP).
Objective: To investigate the impact of the CFPR/TUP programme on food and energy consumption.
Design: Two cross sectional surveys on food consumption were conducted, a pre-intervention survey in 2002
and a post-intervention survey in 2004 covering 180 intervention and 193 non-intervention households. Three
days’ recall method was administrated in both the survey rounds.
Results: The baseline food consumption survey showed an inadequate food intake in all households, which
did not differ between the two groups. At post-intervention, the quality and quantity of food intake improved
significantly in the intervention households as compared to baseline. In this group, the consumption of various
food items such as rice, pulse, vegetables, fish, fruit, milk and egg showed significant improvement
(p<0.001), particularly, the level of fish consumption doubled in intervention households while in control
households it remained almost unchanged (14 g/day to 27 g/day for intervention vs. 11 g/day to 13 g/day for
control). Energy intake increased from 1750±650 Kcal/day to 2138±704 Kcal/day in intervention households
(p<0.001), whereas no significant change was observed in control households. Percentages of energy from
cereals decreased from 85% to 78% in intervention households (p<0.001) while it remained unchanged in
control households.
Conclusion: CFPR/TUP programme seems to have direct impact on ultra poor family’s ability to significantly
increase consumption of food and energy.