Bilal9
ELITE MEMBER
- Feb 4, 2014
- 26,736
- 9
- Country
- Location
Tribune Report
Poverty, climate change, right issues need to be addressed to continue progress, speakers say.
Bangladesh has subverted expectations to be seen as a development miracle by the rest of the world within 50 years of its birth, but various human development challenges continue to linger on in the country, experts have said.
Poverty, climate change, and disasters such as the Covid-19 pandemic are some of the issues the country needs to address in order to maintain its upward development trajectory, they added.
Speakers made the remarks on the social transitions panel of a virtual international conference organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Wednesday to celebrate 50 years of Bangladesh’s independence. The conference was arranged in collaboration with the South Asia program of Cornell University in New York, US.
Dr Selim Jahan, former director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, told the conference Bangladesh has not only maintained an upward development trajectory over the past 50 years, but it has also steadily increased the rate of development.
However, he feared that climate change, poverty and other human development issues may continue to be problematic 50 years from now.
He pointed out policy options and stressed the need for institutional reforms to continue Bangladesh’s march forward.
‘Bangladesh tackled first-generation challenges effectively’
Dr Sohaila Nazneen, research fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at University of Sussex in the UK, said Bangladesh has achieved remarkable progress in gender equality over the last 50 years, starting from a lower base compared to other countries in the region.
She observed that development has ensured rapid gains in health (reducing maternal mortality, fertility), gender parity in education, legal reforms to ensure women’s rights and security and visibility in politics, but the scenario in the country is still providing a sense of unevenness.
“Sticky social norms and gatekeepers still restrict women’s access to resources, spaces within formal institutions and voice. However, are gender equality gains sustainable?” she questioned.
“We have had some achievement, but there is yet more to do,” she added.
Bina Agarwal, chair of the panel and professor of development economics and environment at the Global Development Institute under University of Manchester, stressed the need to implement laws in addition to enacting them.
Role of civil society
CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya said the roots of Bangladesh’s civil society can be traced back to the pre-Independence period.
The performance of the country’s civil society appears to be directly associated with the its state of democratic polity, he added.
The distinguished fellow of CPD divided the history of the country’s CSO’s into four phases - early years of Independence (1971-75), the period of disrupted democracy and struggle against autocracy (1975-1990), the rise and decline of the “new democracy” (1990-2014) and “hybrid” democracy (2014-…).
He used the level of democracy as the criteria for the division and said that the Freedom House Index shows that Bangladesh’s score went up after the national election (2008) and steadily fell from 2013 till 2021. During this period, the score on political rights deteriorated by 42%, while the civil liberty score fell by 27%.
“Posterity will say whether these trends will also hold for our country or not,” he opined.
CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan, Distinguished Fellow Dr. Rounaq Jahan, academicians, and researchers also participated in the program.
- Published at 11:42 pm December 8th, 2021
Poverty, climate change, right issues need to be addressed to continue progress, speakers say.
Bangladesh has subverted expectations to be seen as a development miracle by the rest of the world within 50 years of its birth, but various human development challenges continue to linger on in the country, experts have said.
Poverty, climate change, and disasters such as the Covid-19 pandemic are some of the issues the country needs to address in order to maintain its upward development trajectory, they added.
Speakers made the remarks on the social transitions panel of a virtual international conference organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Wednesday to celebrate 50 years of Bangladesh’s independence. The conference was arranged in collaboration with the South Asia program of Cornell University in New York, US.
Dr Selim Jahan, former director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, told the conference Bangladesh has not only maintained an upward development trajectory over the past 50 years, but it has also steadily increased the rate of development.
However, he feared that climate change, poverty and other human development issues may continue to be problematic 50 years from now.
He pointed out policy options and stressed the need for institutional reforms to continue Bangladesh’s march forward.
‘Bangladesh tackled first-generation challenges effectively’
Dr Sohaila Nazneen, research fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at University of Sussex in the UK, said Bangladesh has achieved remarkable progress in gender equality over the last 50 years, starting from a lower base compared to other countries in the region.
She observed that development has ensured rapid gains in health (reducing maternal mortality, fertility), gender parity in education, legal reforms to ensure women’s rights and security and visibility in politics, but the scenario in the country is still providing a sense of unevenness.
“Sticky social norms and gatekeepers still restrict women’s access to resources, spaces within formal institutions and voice. However, are gender equality gains sustainable?” she questioned.
“We have had some achievement, but there is yet more to do,” she added.
Bina Agarwal, chair of the panel and professor of development economics and environment at the Global Development Institute under University of Manchester, stressed the need to implement laws in addition to enacting them.
Role of civil society
CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya said the roots of Bangladesh’s civil society can be traced back to the pre-Independence period.
The performance of the country’s civil society appears to be directly associated with the its state of democratic polity, he added.
The distinguished fellow of CPD divided the history of the country’s CSO’s into four phases - early years of Independence (1971-75), the period of disrupted democracy and struggle against autocracy (1975-1990), the rise and decline of the “new democracy” (1990-2014) and “hybrid” democracy (2014-…).
He used the level of democracy as the criteria for the division and said that the Freedom House Index shows that Bangladesh’s score went up after the national election (2008) and steadily fell from 2013 till 2021. During this period, the score on political rights deteriorated by 42%, while the civil liberty score fell by 27%.
“Posterity will say whether these trends will also hold for our country or not,” he opined.
CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan, Distinguished Fellow Dr. Rounaq Jahan, academicians, and researchers also participated in the program.
