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Progress Towards Millennium Development Goals

On many counts, Bangladesh’s performance has been better than the initial anticipations after the country’s political independence. The predominant theme at the time was one of negative images. The account of progress achieved by the country, however, shows rapid improvements in many indicators.

First, Bangladesh has achieved impressive success in the area of population control. Total fertility rate (TFR) declined from 6.3 in 1975 to 3.3 in 1997-99. Accordingly, the population growth rate has come down from 2.9 per cent per annum in the mid-seventies to 1.5 per cent in the late-nineties. The remarkable feature of this rapid decline was that it had been achieved not only at a low level of income but also at a low level of literacy.

Second, mortality is often considered as the criterion for judging economic success and failure of nations. Bangladesh has displayed considerable success in this respect, especially in reducing infant and child mortality. The infant mortality rate also declined from 153 deaths per thousand live births in 1975 to 94 deaths in 1990, dropping further to 66 in 2000. The pace of progress in infant and under-five mortality reduction during the nineties was among the fastest in the developing world.

Third, Bangladesh witnessed significant success in disaster preparedness and in overcoming the phenomena of mass starvation and the threat of famine syndrome in the backdrop of endemic vulnerability to natural disasters. At the aggregate level, the country has achieved the desirable objective of near self-sufficiency in rice production with a declining cultivated area. The production of cereals increased at a trend growth rate of 2.4 per cent per year between the early eighties and the late nineties. This was mainly achieved through the expansion of rice areas under high-yielding varieties (HYVs). Although the overall issue of food security remains the next decade’s challenge, increased disaster preparedness combined with expanded capacity to implement lean-season targeted wage-employment and transfer programs have played an important role in ensuring minimum food entitlements for the poorest during the times of crisis.

Fourth, Bangladesh has made impressive gains in reducing child malnutrition rates during the last 15 years. According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data, the rate of stunting for children in the age group of 6-71 months which was 69 per cent in 1985/86 dropped to 49 per cent in 2000. The proportion of underweight children has gone down from 72 per cent in 1985/86 to 51 per cent in 2000. The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data available for the second half of the nineties show a faster decline. The rate of stunting for the age group of 0-59 months has gone down from 55 to 45 per cent during 1996-2000 and, that for underweight, from 56 to 48 per cent during the same period.

Fifth, Bangladesh has achieved considerable success in mainstreaming women into the development process. Bangladeshi women have played an important role in the success of micro-credit, ready-made garment exports, reducing population growth, increasing child nutrition, and in the spread of primary education. The country has achieved gender parity in primary education and nearly removed gender gap in secondary education. Recent evidence also suggests that the country is close to achieving parity in life expectancy at birth as well. While significant gender gaps still persist, the role of women in all walks of life has become increasingly visible and would be instrumental in bringing about wider social and economic changes in future.

Sixth, low-income countries are typically marked not only by ‘weak’ state, but also weak civic and grass-roots movements and activism. Bangladesh was an instructive outlier in this regard. The advances made by the NGOs and CSOs as alternative delivery mechanisms as well as vocal civic institutions have played a significant role in the reversal of fortunes. The emergence of these actors played a partially compensatory role in the backdrop of weak state and market institutions. Social entrepreneurialism through catalyzing the developmental roles of the organizations of the poor such as community based organizations (CBOs) and organizations for the poor (NGOs and CSOs) has been an important strategic element in the poverty reduction strategy. These social enterprises will continue to play an important role in developing a pro-poor development agenda in Bangladesh.

Seventh, Bangladesh has achieved significant progress towards a viable democratic transition. Ensuring free and fair elections through non-partisan caretaker government has been a noteworthy political innovation in the backdrop of weak democratic institutions in the country. There have also been important gains in terms of increased political and electoral participation of women, enhanced press freedom, and increasingly active civic movements. Although the process of democratization is yet to take deeper roots, the success achieved so far was not inconsequential prompting many observers to term Bangladesh’s experience as a role model of “moderate Muslim democracy”.

Progress in Cross-Country Perspectives

Bangladesh’s progress also stands out in cross-country comparisons. This supports the proposition that higher social/ human development outcomes can be achieved even at a lower level of per capita national income. Bangladesh’s growth performance was relatively modest with a per capita GDP growth of about 2 per cent per annum. The growth performance started to improve only in the nineties. Similarly, the pace of income-poverty reduction was very slow. During the period between early eighties and early nineties, the incidence of income-poverty declined by 0.8 per cent per year in Bangladesh compared with 1.9 per cent for India, 1.4 per cent in Pakistan and 3.6 per cent in Sri Lanka.

Notwithstanding the relatively slow income growth and modest pace of income poverty reduction, Bangladesh’s achievements in the broad area of human development were faster and, in some respects, remarkable. Although the level of social deprivations in Bangladesh is still high, the pace of improvement has been encouraging. Indeed, the pace of progress in reducing TFR, bringing down the level of under-five mortality, and lowering the prevalence of child malnutrition is not only higher than the average progress recorded in LDCs, but also stands out in the overall context of South Asia.

The relatively higher social progress at a low level of income is also vindicated by the comparison of predicted (for a given level of per capita income) with the actual values of social indicators achieved by the country. Compared with the predicted values, the actual progress recorded has been higher for the contraceptive prevalence rate, lower for population growth rate as well as for TFR and CBR, higher for life expectancy at birth and child immunization coverage, and lower for IMR. While there has been considerable progress in the expansion of literacy, the pace needs to be accelerated.

Summary Points

Bangladesh had adverse initial conditions at the start of its journey three decades ago. With one of the most vulnerable economies of the world characterized by extremely high population density, low resource base, high incidence of natural disasters, and extremely adverse initial circumstances associated with the inheritance of a war-ravaged economy, the implications for long-term savings, investment, and growth were deemed extremely bleak. Notwithstanding the early negative predictions, Bangladesh has achieved considerable success in several spheres such as population control, reduction in child mortality and child malnutrition, disaster mitigation, mainstreaming women into the development process, catalyzing grass-roots activism through NGOs and CBOs, and in making democratic transition.

The growth performance and income-poverty reduction have also improved in the decade of the nineties compared with the previous decades, though much leaves to be desired in these areas. These successes show the importance of undertaking public action (through the Government and non-government sectors) at low-income level to realize higher social possibilities. These signs of improvement indicate that development is possible even in the most trying of circumstances. Bangladesh which was once termed ‘the test case of development’ may indeed represent a learning site for keeping the hopes alive for other equally less fortunate post-colonial societies with adverse initial conditions. This would be especially important in the context of overcoming the persistent economic pessimism and hopelessness—‘Afro-pessimism’ is a case in point--that is often cited in relation to the most disadvantaged parts of the developing world.

Source: A National Strategy for Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction and Social Development
Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Chapter1.