Understanding Bangladesh from a Neighbour’s Door

The Mahajote’s victory in the recent Bangladesh election may be seen as one of the most important event in the history of Bangladesh. It is eventful because when the whole world was busy to project Bangladesh as a breeding centre for Islamic fundamentalism. The outcome is certainly a paradigm shift. This time the Jote has been able to reach across divides of religion, race, gender and politics and unify her country once again after 1971 war of independence. The caretaker government, election commission, civil society and the army also played a contributory role to conduct such a free and fair election. In fact the other developing economies where democracy is fragile and has had constant threat to the nation state may also learn this experience from Bangladesh.

The idea of projecting Bangladesh as a fundamentalist state may bear serious limitations. The country has its strong root. The culture, Rabindranath, Nazrul, Jashimuddin are all important contributors in order to support her claim as a nation state. One can not just ignore this root for just few episodes dictated by few Islamic fundamentalist groups.

The Mahajote’s win may be explained by high expectations because of repeated political failures. The country’s leaders took hazardous task to grow. At home, wrong policies, and selfish policymakers practically ruined the immense prospect of the country. This time, the Jote has successfully reconnected politics to the young and to youthful idealism. Then they have also tried to give them hope from frustration. The rediscovery of the ideals of liberation war has once again invigorated the young population. Thanks to Sector commanders forum for playing such catalytic role. How the new government will fulfill the challenges is remains to be seen.

The agricultural sector is the biggest challenge to the new government. The role of international agencies and their policy advice to the food-deficit economies such as Bangladesh may have played a significant contributory role to the development of the last year’s crisis. Since the mid-1990s, countries that rely heavily on cereal production – particularly rice – were advised by the international agencies that a highly liquid, global market for cereals would be a healthy and desirable development for all. Accordingly, many countries such as Bangladesh got convinced that it would be safe to cover any shortfall in domestic output with purchases from the international market particularly from India, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. As a result the rice and wheat sectors became less protected. Some countries burdened with high cost of production even dismantled export bans and reduced import tariffs. Some International agencies even argued that there is a glut of food production worldwide as evinced from the downward trend in the real price of rice and wheat in the world market and building of huge food stocks in neighbouring India. India too has misunderstood this issue. Her response to last year’s food crisis in Bangladesh was not at all satisfactory. The policy makers in this region now can think of integrating the whole issue of agriculture, starting from uniform implicit and explicit subsidies (output and input) to pricing of output. Any unilateral decision will distort other markets, encourage informal trade and thus impedes the welfare of the people in the region.
Obviously, the old prescriptions of the international agencies have not worked. There is a need to revisit the old models, analyses and policy recommendations. Fresh long-term forecasts of demand of food items, factoring in new uses and new consumption patterns would be needed to estimate if there is a supply-demand gap emerging in the longer term. Investments in agriculture would have to be revived to increase the local production and this should include investments needed for better water management. Finally, out-of-the-box thinking will be needed to come out with new policy recommendations like creation of regional buffer stocks to overcome volatility in production. Or else, it will be the poor in the poorest countries that will suffer the most due to food shortage in future.
For last ten years, the country has produced result in the manufacturing sector. But the potentials still to be explored. Much of the failures may be derived from partisan politics, and the governments in power. People are disappointed by previous governments.
The most dangerous is security threat and tension across borders. Then there are countries who have been working hard to exploit the situation. India can play a pragmatic role here. Take the case of manpower. The training of man power may have immediate impact in order to improve relationship. It appears that there is a strong relationship between investments in human capital and economic growth in the context of Bangladesh. The need to improve the quality of human resources is particularly important for Bangladesh, given its importance in the attraction of foreign direct investment. Although the developing world accounts for a steadily increasing share of world manufacturing (partly driven by lower wages and costs in that world), competitive advantage based on low wages is inherently a transitory phenomenon: sooner or later, developing countries such as Bangladesh will face the need to improve their skill as other lower cost producers emerge (for example, garments).
Many have argued that the level of education is below the performance required to integrate entrants to the labour force. According to them part of the low productivity levels are partly explained by ineffective education. A significant number of populations have been at the highest risk of low academic achievement. The fact that the poor have low levels of education in Bangladesh highlights the need to address educational issues.
There are many different types of public and private training programmes in Bangladesh in order to address issues such as low skill levels and high rate of unemployment rates among youth. In Bangladesh, ineffective training schemes impede an effective labour market for growth. This is due to limited labour market information systems and weak dialogue between public educational institutions and employers. Government programmes in particular have found it difficult to respond to the changing needs of the labour market, and to provide up-to-date equipment because of bureaucratic and fiscal pressures.
India can help Bangladesh in many ways such as developing English speaking population; increase the number of technical and high-tech skilled population. There is a dearth of semi skilled based educational institutes such as repairing cell phones, and Bajaj Scooters.
The prestigious Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) may also be advised to open in Bangladesh based on public and private partnership. Indeed, this may help to restrict migration then the reduction of poverty . An economically strong democratic Bangladesh may stabilize South Asia. Needless to mention that availability educated workforce with low level of employability may create more problems for both India and Bangladesh.
It seems useful to mention here that the world as we know today will undergo major changes by the middle of this century. The countries that are unable or slow to respond will have to make room for others that can move quicker and innovation will be the key differentiating factor. In the long term, it may even be possible for some economies to survive only on the basis of their capital or technology, but labour alone may be unable to provide this sustenance. By bringing a large part of their population to the economic marketplace, India, Bangladesh and other South Asian nations will set free their innovation potential which has so far not found any route to reach the market. When this happens, the region will surely be a different place.