Zoglul Husain :
Over the last two decades Bangladesh, in terms of development, has been making steady and remarkable progress. It has maintained both steady economic growth and human development, so that, according to the World Bank in 2012, it was then already ‘among the 25 largest developing countries based on gross national income’. It is certainly possible to maintain the development and accelerate it. This article aims to analyse the Bangladesh situation in relation to the economic and human development of the developing countries in the present world and conclude that we as a nation can achieve our targets, provided we avail of the opportunities we have and manage the impediments with prudence and determination.
To discuss the question of the development of Bangladesh, firstly we need to consider the economic development and the human development situations specific to Bangladesh, secondly we need to view it relative to such developments in other countries, and thirdly we also need to look at the interactions of Bangladesh’s economic and human development activities with those of other relevant countries.
To see where Bangladesh stands today in the world in terms of development, let us have a look at the world situation prevailing at the present time.
The countries of the world are generally classified into two categories: developed and developing, although the two designations do not follow any universally agreed convention. The factors deeming a country as developed is contentious. The usual criteria include one or a combination of the following: a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (per person); a highly developed post-industrial economy (tertiary and quaternary sectors of economy); and/or a highly developed Human Development Index (HDI). The countries lacking in these criteria are classed as developing countries.
Of the economic sectors above, the primary sector is agriculture, the secondary sector is industry, the tertiary sector is service, such as banking, insurance, and transport, and the quaternary sector is formed of knowledge-based service, such as IT, education, research and planning. The Human Development Index (HDI) basically consists of 3 indices, which are: life expectancy index at birth, schooling index, and income index or standard of living index.
Presently there are 193 member states in the UN. Of these, according to World Bank classification on 1 July 2014, there were 76 countries, including regions, which were regarded as high-income countries. The term ‘high-income countries’ is interchangeable with ‘developed countries’.
As to the above classification, the World Bank regarded a country with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita above US $12,746 in 2013 as a high-income country, a country with GNI per capita less than this and higher than $1,045 in 2013 as a middle-income country and a country with GNI per capita less than the latter as a low-income country. The GNI is the income from production at home, that is, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), plus the income from foreign countries including income through investment, services, and remittances.
Thus, the developing countries consist of the middle- and the low-income countries according to the above classifications. The developing countries always have a quest for the advancement of socio-economic conditions, an aspiration to be abreast with the developed countries. The question is whether there exist the right conditions for development in the country and whether the efforts for development are in the right direction and are at least adequate. The right conditions mean here the appropriate political and economic conditions for development and necessary efforts to be sustained in correct directions. Organisation and the required general set-up of productive forces are crucial. So, can the developing countries achieve the desired development? The answer is an emphatic yes! A quick glance at the GNIs shows a very disproportionately uneven development in the world. The countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are generally very much behind the so-called metropolitan countries.
The main reason behind this scenario is European colonisation, which started from the Portuguese invasion of the Canary Islands in 1402 and which had an impetus from Columbus’s voyage in 1492. As a consequence of colonialism the colonial countries became very wealthy and the colonies became pauperised. For example, Bengal under the Nawabs of Murshidabad was the richest, or one of the richest, country in the then world, and it was known to Europe as the richest country to trade with, but shortly after colonisation it became one of the poorest countries in the world! Soon after colonisation in 1757, Bengal was struck by the great famine of 1770 in which one-third of the population perished, before this Bengal had never seen famine! On the other hand, according to many historians, the wealth acquired from British India (including huge amounts of gold and money, along with diamonds, jewels, gems and various merchandise, forced export-import) provided the economic engine for the British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) to take place. But colonialism did not stop here.
WWII was essentially a war between rival colonial powers, but the end of this saw the end of colonialism. In the process of de-colonisation, nations were freed and new nation-states sprang up. A huge amount of human power and spirit were unleashed, with terrific amounts of economic prospect and potential, hitherto unthought-of in human history. In its present state of affairs, amid degrading conflicts globally, regionally and locally, the world nevertheless has been advancing with stupendous economic developments, albeit its march can be stopped and reverted back by negative forces, unless the world defeats these backward forces.
Many developing countries, since WWII, contemplated rapid development and many succeeded too, setting examples to follow for other developing nations, though the countries, which achieved these rapid developments followed different paths depending on the concrete conditions of the countries concerned.
China achieved stupendous economic development. Already the 2nd largest economy in the world, China averaged 10 per cent GDP growth over the last 30 years. During this period its economy grew about 48 times from $168 billion in 1981 to $8 trillion in 2012. The Tiger Economies of Asia (such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia) made phenomenal development, which were termed as an Asian miracle. They had a crisis in 1997, but later they recovered, though to a slower rate of growth. Presently, many African countries have been making good progress, including some sub-Saharan countries, but many African countries are yet to catch up with the trend of growth of the emerging countries.
Since 2001, a new phenomenon developed in the world economy, which may be characterised by the emergence of the developing countries, that is, the developing countries making good economic progress. In what has been termed as a ‘golden decade’, between 2001 and 2012, the advanced countries grew only by 1.6% a year, while 154 countries, termed as emerging countries by the IMF, grew by 6.2% a year. In the process, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as an economic block has already emerged as a block of economically powerful countries. Most other emergent countries progressed very well, so much so that, in the last 20 years poverty in the developing countries dropped from 43% in 1990 to 21% in 2010, nearly to half.
In these success stories of progress of developing countries, Bangladesh made its mark too. On 12 December 2005, the Investment Bank, Goldman Sachs, listed Bangladesh as one of the “Next 11 emerging countries (N-11) after BRICS”. The eleven countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea and Vietnam. The criteria for the selection were macroeconomic stability, political maturity, openness of trade and investment policies, and the quality of education.
Bangladesh has enormous development potential, despite being one of the Least Developed Countries (LDC). The UN made the list of LDCs according to 3 criteria: poverty (as of 2012, the average GNI per capita of less than $992, which must exceed $1,190 to leave the list), human resources (based on nutrition, health, education and adult literacy) and economic vulnerability (such as instability of production and services, smallness of economy and export, natural disasters causing displacement of population). As of 24 January 2014, there are 48 countries, which have been included in the list of LDCs.
Despite being an LDC, Bangladesh is aiming to be a middle-income country by 2021. The GDP growth rates in Bangladesh have been steady at around 6% over the last decade. The GDP has crossed the threshold of $130 billion. Export has risen from $6 billion in 2000 to $25 billion in 2012, a four-fold increase, and has now reached $35 billion.
Bangladesh is the second largest garments (RMG, ready made garments) exporter in the world, next to China. It exports medicines to 100 countries, and has been building ships for some European countries. Similarly, other sectors of production have been gearing up too. These are IT technology, leather industry, steel industry, electronic industry and light engineering industry.
Bangladesh has also been receiving earnings from remittances, which in 2012-13 was $16 billion, the export and import figures in the same period being: export $35 billion and import $39 billion.
One of the significant aspects of Bangladesh’s economy is the increasing female participation in the workforce. With male participation at 83% and female participation at 59%, the women participation is higher than many developing countries. Of the 3.5 million workforce in the garment industry, about 80% is represented by female workers, which is an indicator of the important role that the female workforce has had in advancing the national economy.
Bangladesh has also made steady progress in the Human Development Index (HDI). The criteria of HDI changed in 2012. As per the present criteria, between 1980 and 2012, Bangladesh’s life expectancy at birth increased by 14 years from 55.2 to 69.2, expected years of schooling increased by 3.7 years from 4.4 to 8.1, the mean years of schooling increased by 2.8 years from 2 to 4.8 years, and the average GNI (2005 PPP $) per capita increased by 175% from $649 to $1785. In total the HDI value rose from 0.312 to 0.515, a significant increase of 65%, or average annual increase of 1.6% from 1980 to 2012. This positions Bangladesh at 146 out of 187 comparative countries and territories.
If Bangladesh meets the target of becoming a middle-income by 2021, the next aim would be to become a developed country. To achieve these targets we need to look at the impediments as well as favourable conditions and opportunities. We need to set the strategies accordingly and try our best to achieve these goals.
The main impediments include political instability, lack of good governance, lack of independent judiciary, reckless corruption of the administration, the investors and the entrepreneurs, inefficiency of the production processes, injustice, depravation and oppression to the workforces giving rise to labour unrest quite often, lack of standards in many industries giving rise to deplorable accidents, lack of proper infrastructure for production, export, import. On top of that the instability, corruption and infrastructure problems cause shyness, hesitation and prevention of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). We therefore need to device policies and implement these to overcome the impediments to both economic development and human development.
The engine of economic and human development is run by the workforce involved. Any injustice to the workforce in any sector can only be to the detrimental to the sector concerned, making a negative impact on national development. In 2013 Bangladesh had a labour force of about 88 million, of which by sectors, 40% worked in agriculture, 30% in industry and 30% in service sector. Beside these there is a workforce of about 10 million, earning remittance for the country. The Government and all relevant people involved in the development must take every possible step to ensure proper welfare to this workforce, both male and female, so that the engine of development can be maintained and accelerated. The contributions to the GDP, as of 2013, from agriculture was about 19%, from the industrial sector about 30% and from the service sector about 51%.
Maintaining the well-being of the workforces or the human resources, along with alleviation of poverty, and income generation for the general people must be the central objective of our strategy for the development of Bangladesh. As the workforce along with the general people gain more purchase power, the internal market gets more stimulated and expanded. A concerted effort must be given to this area, rather than depending on any trickling effect or so. The workforce needs to be trained and be equipped with proper implements and provided with right facilities. For the general people, basic amenities and rights should be ensured. These include: food, clean water, clothing, health facilities, education and housing, along with democratic rights and human rights. If justice is not ensured, then the society cannot be called civilised or rational.
We must strive for political stability and good governance. We can work with the UN and the development partners to achieve these, for political stability and good governance are also beneficial for the development partners. We must work out win-win relations in our dealings with development partners. We should increase transactions with those willing to work on a win-win basis, remembering that from 2008, the world has become multi-polar, and many new economic powers are arising, who can be good development partners in addition to the traditional ones.
The development of infrastructure is another important strategic issue. We must develop suitable infrastructure for economic as well as human development. Roads, waterways, communication networks, river ports, seaports, airports need to be properly built and functioning. We must also manage our national resources prudently, with national interest in mind when dealing with external or internal investors.
To attract FDI, we must ensure proper facilities, favourable administrative set-ups, proper infrastructure and business environment on a win-win basis.
If we take these strategic steps, then there is no reason why we should not be able to increase our growth of GDP to 10% and even more, which is needed to become a middle-income country sooner rather than later.
We have the right conditions for economic and human development, we have the right workforce and good development partners. We need to establish political and social stability, develop good governance and responsible administration, control corruption, organise the people and the workforce to achieve our immediate target of becoming a middle-income country and to gradually become a developed country.
(The writer is a development activist)
