Contrary to Dianne Whitmore’s write-up on poverty in Bangladesh, the World Bank portrays a contrary picture. Dianne Whitmore wrote from 1975 to 1991, the country went back and forth between being ruled by a military coup and a parliamentary government. Finally, in 1991, Bangladesh established the parliamentary system currently being used. However, from 1991 to 2009, there was a cycle of two leaders that were running the country. One leader would serve two terms and then the other leader would serve the next two terms, causing instability in the country that did not allow focus on Bangladesh’s citizens. There is a wide gap between upper-class and lower-class citizens in Bangladesh. This is mostly caused by cities such as the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, drawing people away from impoverished regions, leaving these areas even poorer. The distribution of goods is focused in these cities, which makes it more difficult for rural areas to make a living. There are several reasons why Bangladesh is poor.
World Bank is hopeful about Bangladesh’s future
Even though there is some stability now and the GDP has been rising over the past few years, the lower classes still experience a lack of life expectancy, and infant mortality rates that are concerning. These factors are what hold the country back from making advancements to become a developed country. The World Bank in 2018 was hopeful of the prospect of Bangladesh becoming a beacon of light for the developing countries' aspiration to leave poverty behind. Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty, supported by sustained economic growth. Based on the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day, poverty declined from 44.2% in 1991 to 13.8% in 2016/17.
In parallel, life expectancy, literacy rates, and per capita food production have increased significantly. Progress was underpinned by 6%-plus growth over the decade and reaching to 7.3% in 2016/2017, according to official estimates. Rapid growth enabled Bangladesh to reach the lower middle-income country status in 2015. In 2018, Bangladesh met the eligibility criteria for graduation from the United Nation’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) list and is on track to graduate in 2024. Sustained economic growth has increased the demand for energy and transport, and spurred urbanization. Insufficient planning and investment have resulted in increasingly severe infrastructure bottlenecks. To achieve its growth aspiration of becoming an upper-middle income country by its 50th anniversary in 2021, the country needs to urgently implement structural reforms, expand investments in human capital, increase female labour force participation, and raise productivity through increased global value chain integration. Improving infrastructure as well as the business climate would allow new productive sectors to develop and generate jobs.
Bangladesh is both an inspiration and a challenge for policymakers and practitioners of development. While the income growth, human development and vulnerability reduction efforts to date have been extraordinary. The World Bank suggested that Bangladesh needed to create more and better jobs for the two million youths entering the job market every year. To do so, Bangladesh would need to remove the barriers to higher growth posed by low access to reliable and affordable power, poor transportation infrastructure, limited availability of serviced land, uncertain and complex business regulation, rapid urbanization, and vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters, among others. The World Bank has been a longstanding partner of Bangladesh since its independence.
The World Bank through its concessional lending arm -- the International Development Association (IDA) -- had committed more than $28 billion in grants, interest-free and concessional financing credits to Bangladesh. In recent years Bangladesh has been among the largest recipient countries of the IDA fund totaling more than 11 billion. The World Bank has also been the largest external funder of Bangladesh providing over a quarter of all foreign aid to the country. Bangladesh faces daunting challenges with about 22 million people still living below the poverty line. The country is at an important juncture: with the right policies and timely action, it can move up within the middle-income bracket. 
Job creation is Bangladesh’s top development priority
The World Bank has identified job creation as the country’s top development priority. According to the latest report of April 2023, the poverty rate in the country came down to 18.7% at the national level, which is 20.5% in the rural areas and 14.7% in the urban areas, according to the key findings of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022. The survey findings also showed that the overall rate of extreme poverty in the country is 5.6%, which is 6.5% in the rural areas and 3.8% in the urban areas. The poverty rate in the country in 2016 was 24.3% while the extreme poverty rate was 12.9%. Bangladesh's government claimed that Bangladesh is still performing better compared to India and Pakistan in terms of per capita income, debt to GDP ratio, and child mortality rate. The Director General of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), an independent think tank, opined that it was very nice to see that the rate of poverty including extreme poverty is declining in the country. BIDS further added that the poor section of people is now trying to become rich while the rural inequality has declined.
The latest HIES data shows an increase in monthly income
The HIES 2022 showed that the household's average monthly income has increased significantly. The recent data also showed that the household's monthly total expenditure has increased nominally. The HIES 2022 data illustrates that the share of food and non-food consumption expenditures in the household has changed. Non-food expenditures are increasing gradually. There is no single factor that consistently spurs the perfect or ideal amount of growth needed for an economy. Unfortunately, recessions are a fact of life and can be caused by external factors such as geopolitical and geo-financial events. Other factors help promote consumer and business spending and prosperity. Tax cuts and tax rebates are designed to put more money back into the pockets of consumers. Ideally, these consumers spend a portion of that money at various businesses, which increases the businesses' revenues, cash flows, and profits. Having more cash means companies have the resources to procure capital, improve technology, grow, and expand. All of these actions increase productivity, which grows the economy. Tax cuts and rebates, proponents argue, allow consumers to stimulate the economy themselves by imbuing it with more money.
As with any stimulus used to spur economic growth, it's often difficult to pinpoint how much growth was created by the stimulus and how much was generated by other factors and market forces. Infrastructure spending occurs when a local, state, or federal government spends money to build or repair the physical structures and facilities needed for commerce and society as a whole to thrive. Infrastructures include roads, bridges, ports, and sewer systems. Economists who favour infrastructure spending as an economic catalyst argue that having top-notch infrastructure increases productivity by enabling businesses to operate as efficiently as possible.
For example, when roads and bridges are abundant and in working order, trucks spend less time sitting in traffic, and they don't have to take circuitous routes to traverse waterways. Additionally, infrastructure spending creates jobs as workers must be hired to complete the green-lighted projects. It is also capable of spawning new economic growth. For example, the construction of a new highway might lead to other investments such as gas stations and retail stores opening to cater to motorists. Multiple factors working together typically are what impact economic growth, which often is reflected in GDP growth and GNP growth. There are numerous strategies governments might use to try and stimulate economic growth, such as tax breaks or tax rebates, deregulation, and investment in infrastructure. Given all these factors and the encouraging scenario painted by the World Bank Bangladesh has all the reasons to be optimistic about her future. Bangladesh can be a candlelight for the developing countries of the world.
Critical views from external sources
The famous British magazine The Economist has commented that Bangladesh has now become a one-party state. The magazine observed that it was the kind of result a truly democratic politician can only dream of. Not long after polls in Bangladesh’s parliamentary election closed on January 7, a returning officer in Sheikh Hasina’s Dhaka constituency announced that the prime minister had been re-elected with 249,965 votes. The runner-up received 469. The long-serving prime minister’s overwhelming victory was matched by her Awami League (AL) party, which won 222 of the 299 contested seats. With the main opposition party boycotting the poll, the al was the only powerful political group to take part.
The process confirms Bangladesh’s transition from a flawed but competitive democracy to a de facto one-party state, albeit with some electoral democratic trappings. Unless Sheikh Hasina, who has governed uninterrupted for the past 15 years, radically changes tack, the country’s 170 million people face ever-increasing levels of authoritarianism. World Political Review comments (Shariar Fazli Hasina Is Pushing Bangladesh’s Democracy to the Breaking Point) observes that the Dark Side of Bangladesh’s Politics and Progress Electoral politics can get nasty across South Asia, especially with the rise of populist leaders like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan. But Bangladesh stands apart due to the deeply personal rivalry between Hasina and Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister and BNP chairperson. The two women have exchanged terms in office since the military first transferred power back to civilians in 1990. Zia’s late husband, Gen Ziaur Rahman was responsible for the bloody 1975 coup against Hasina’s father and Bangladesh’s first prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, commonly known as Mujib. Hasina holds Gen Zia responsible for her father’s assassination, as well as that of her brother and several other relatives killed in the coup. She also accuses Khaleda Zia of playing a role in an attempt on her life in August 2004. Justin Porter of the New York Times (January 8, 2024) wrote Bangladesh voted amid crackdowns and boycotts Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was nearly guaranteed a fourth consecutive term in office as voting ended in a low-turnout election. Security remained tight as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition, boycotted the election as unfair and pushed for a nationwide strike.
In the days leading up to the vote, violence was reported across the country -- including arson that killed four people on a train in Dhaka, the capital, and the torching of more than a dozen polling stations. The opposition’s effort to protest the vote has been met with an intensified crackdown. Despite critical reporting by famous magazines/newspapers on Bangladesh elections, the World Bank holds the candlelight for a hopeful future for Bangladesh. The World Bank is convinced that given good governance and proper ingredients for sustainable growth Bangladesh could in the future be an example for other developing countries to come out of poverty and join the ranks of countries with sustainable growth.
Kazi Anwarul Masud has been in diplomatic service for more than three decades. He was an ambassador to several countries, and specializes in foreign affairs with particular reference to South and South East Asia. His interests include AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Region.
