The experts have rightly voiced their opinions in reactions to March 16 UN announcement that Bangladesh now meets graduation criteria calling for sustained efforts to address major challenges on its way. There is no doubt; the country is at the exit point from the status of a least developed nation since 1975. But we believe as experts also made clear that only per capita income, human index and improvement in economic vulnerability index are not enough. These hardly reflect the actual situation in a socio-economic system increasingly based on widening income and opportunity gap between the rich and the poor.
The development criteria should therefore make sure how the higher growth rates are benefiting the common people. If few dominate the most and the vast majority remains largely ignored and deprived, such development can’t claim to have achieved overall developing status for all. The criteria must be more inclusive. Statistical figure alone is not enough; happiness index is also important to measure per head development.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) suggests, income inequality increased to 0.483 at national level in 2016 from 0.458 in 2010. The country’s economic growth could not result in creating enough jobs to absorb growing unemployment during this period. Meanwhile, local and foreign investments remained stagnant, banks and financial sector crumbled and quality of governance nose-dived. The biggest challenge is now public safety; people are disappearing regularly in the hands of people claiming to be members of law enforcement agencies.
We must say other than running wild to showcase impressive achievement to become a Middle Income nation; because the nation will achieve it from own dynamism, the government must act quickly to remove basic challenges on way to rapid growth. Claim based on higher statistical figures is meaningless unless people feel they have achieved higher socio-economic growth.
