BIDS Newsletter: June 2016

Abstract

The Year 2016 began auspiciously, ushering in a period of intense professional activity. A total of five studies were completed in the last six months while quite a few more came on stream. Amongst the concluded studies, we have a review of the role of rice prices in development, summarised in the highlights section below. Other sponsored studies completed include children and youth develop­ment, service delivery at the local level and evalua­tion of WASH and FFW, TR and VGD. There are a dozen ongoing studies that we have reported here. These include both sponsored work and research, initiated by the researchers themselves. Increasingly, BIDS researchers are being encouraged to focus more on independent research based on their own interests. Examples of ongoing research include "The existence of a "J-Curve" in Bangladesh which is important for trade policy, the relationship between migration, education, and nutrition, and the question of the linkage between agricultural production and cropping patterns with consumption and nutritional status of households. One of the major studies in progress is the ADB funded, Labour Market and Skills Gap Analyses, which promises to be of great policy value as it will be used to develop training programmes to address the skill shortage problem. A total often sectors along with a macro study are currently in progress.