Ten items for Professor Yunus’ to-do list
As I said to the BBC prior to the collapse of the Hasina government, regime-change is a necessary though not a sufficient condition for Bangladesh to realize its economic potential.
This was mainly because the crisis in confidence created by persistent inflation, financial misgovernance, underemployment, poor labour relations, and forcibly misaligned levels of interest rates, exchange rate and stock prices, could not credibly be reversed by incumbents.
Today, with the surfeit of confidence and credibility with which Professor Yunus brings to his new role, we have a unique opportunity to look ahead with optimism.
As he embarks on this role, I wanted to think aloud about ten items that he may wish to include in his immediate to-do list:
- Reassurance: Unfreeze the organs of state that may be paralyzed by fear of retribution for their association with the previous regime.
Similar to Nelson Mandela’s historic appearance at the rugby world cup of 1995, a visible show of support from Professor Yunus would provide reassurance to members of the police and civil service.
Even as the most egregious atrocities are prosecuted and institutions are structurally depoliticized over time, the vast majority of public servants should be allowed to get back to their jobs of providing security and public service without the fear of prolonged witch hunts.
The American policy of “de-Baathification” after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq contributed to an excessive hollowing out of state capabilities.
- Bounce forward not just bounce back: Fully engaged and forward-looking public servants can create enabling conditions for economic recovery.
This would apply not just to existing industries but also areas of growth just as tourism.
A concerted effort at encouraging tourism within the country (including by visiting non-resident Bangladeshis) could help get spending going.
The police can play a proactive role in this part of nation-building.
- Diaspora: Not just tourism and not just through remittance, members of the diaspora can provide tremendous capital towards national needs.
They can mobilize financial capital, intellectual capital, professional capital and network capital.
We must harness the goodwill and euphoria of the moment to truly galvanize this community in a systematic way.
- New style of leadership: Everyone should feel empowered to contribute in their own enterprising ways without formal authority or titles.
A key lesson from the heroic student movement in Bangladesh is how they exercised leadership.
It is telling that they called themselves “coordinators” not leaders, acted as a non-hierarchical and agile team, out-maneuvered the command-and-control structure of their opponents and stayed focused on their goals.
That is the spirit with which everyone should be invited to contribute – no senior, no junior.
Members of the diaspora should be able to self-organize around thematic areas and expertise.
- Be ostentatiously inclusive: The nation needs one or two symbols and occasions on which they can unite as one without feeling like they are betraying their political party allegiances.
We also need vivid examples of people working across divides, overcoming scars of the past.
Professor Yunus needs to choose and demonstrate those symbols.
One possibility is to reclaim Bangabandhu away from one political party with a notable gesture later this month.
- Economy above ideology: Macroeconomic conditions – inflation, employment, productivity - are binding constraints on national aspirations.
The economy does not wait for deep-seated ideological differences to resolve themselves.
The change of regime and Professor Yunus’ appointment injects an immediate dose of confidence, and all markets should see a ‘governance dividend’.
However, this confidence needs to be followed through with private sector investment and inward foreign investment.
There needs to be an immediate focus on jobs. Business leaders should be convened and asked for what they need from the government in order to increase their hiring or procurement from small businesses.
Finance and banking will require a forensic look but initiatives such as NRB offshore banking should get a confidence boost from better governance.
Think-tanks such as CPD or PRI, professional bodies such as BASIS or the CFA Society are brimming with well-researched ideas.
Many of those ideas require coordination and cooperation that can only be executed with the sponsorship and moral authority of Professor Yunus.
- Economic Diplomacy: I have personally witnessed Professor Yunus appear as chief guest at economic outreach events of other countries at Davos.
As head of global emerging markets for an investment banking business, I have seen several developing countries punch above their weight with deft economic diplomacy.
We need a set of economic ambassadors with explicit targets for investment.
Singapore provides an excellent template for goals-driven economic diplomacy along with exceptional customer service from their equivalent of the Board of Investment or BIDA.
Our chief economic diplomat can also help connect areas of global demand (for example for products related to environmental sustainability or healthcare) with supply from Bangladesh.
Members of the diaspora have direct expertise in this.
Furthermore, we could convene the top CEOs and global institutional investors in Dhaka perhaps in partnership with organizations such as the World Economic Forum.
Finally, we could declare 2025 as “Invest in Bangladesh Year” and use that as the umbrella theme for improving our standards of governance and service delivery.
- Unleash ideas from the youth in real-time: social media is filled with clever and practical ideas from ordinary citizens who do not have access to a “suggestions box”.
It should be easy to create a website (www.dabi.bd) where people can post their ideas and others can vote them up or down.
Perhaps on a monthly basis, the government can respond to the best ideas.
This could act as an online citizens’ assembly and an avenue for the government to directly stay abreast of citizens’ concerns.
- A design-thinking approach to structural reforms: Institutional reforms should be undertaken with care for their systemic impact and second-order consequences.
We must focus on building a system of checks and balances, not one that relies on a heroic leader or one that can be easily bent by a villainous one.
We should take a bit of time to assess examples in other countries and also learn lessons from our own history.
Where did previous acts of reform go wrong? How could the model of caretaker government be manipulated so easily? What mistakes did the Fakhruddin government make that this government should avoid?
Institutional processes must be designed and tested for potential points of failure so that we never ever find ourselves with a once-popular leader that we cannot get rid of without bloodshed.
- Over-communicate: Professor Yunus should directly address people and/or conduct interactive press conferences on a frequent basis.
At the moment, expectations are very high, and the government will have to focus on a small number of things, not boil the ocean in one go, yet keep hope alive that all of the issues will be dealt with in the fullness of time.
Professor Yunus has the charisma and credibility to keep the people on-side, authentically communicate successes and failures along the journey, and keep conspiracy theories at bay.
Part of these regular communications should also be forward-looking, setting and updating the vision for specific sectors.
Lutfey Siddiqi is visiting Professor-in-Practice, London School of Economics
