Bangladesh has displayed stellar economic performance in the new millennium, but yet its per capita income has remained abysmally low. Despite, there has been a steady improvement in its levels of many social development outcomes. Popular commentaries have drawn comparisons with India and Pakistan in highlighting the significance of Bangladesh’s development achievements. This phenomenon has been termed as the “BANGLADESH CONUNDRUM,” and has received extensive coverage in international media outlets, such as the

1. BANGLADESH
CONUNDRU

2. INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh’s economy:
-remarkable economic performance in the new millennium
-but its per capita income has remained low.
Even more spectacular has been the steady improvement in its
levels of many social development outcomes.
Popular commentaries have drawn comparisons with India and
Pakistan in highlighting the significance of Bangladesh’s
development achievements.
This phenomenon has been termed as the “BANGLADESH
CONUNDRUM,” and has received extensive coverage in
international media outlets, such as the
-New York Times,
-The Economist

3. HENRY KISSINGER, AMERICAN
DIPLOMAT:
-Coined the demeaning term, ‘basket
case’
-For countries that would always
depend on foreign aid
-Applied to Bangladesh by many
thinkers

4. INDIA Vs. BANGLADESH: AT A GLANCE
1.) PER CAPITA INCOME
Bangladesh’s per capita income is half of what India’s is at this point of time
GDP per capita
(Constant 2005 International $)
BANGLADESH INDIA
1990 741 1,193
2011 1569 3,203
2.) Bangladesh has improved its performance in the social indicators, especially
-Child Survival
-Reduced Fertility Rates
-Life Expectancy
-Enhanced immunization rates
-Few of the Schooling Indicators

5. SOME FACTS
-Between 1990 and 2010 life expectancy of Bangladeshis rose by 10
years, from 59 to 69.
-Bangladeshis now have a life expectancy FOUR YEARS longer than
Indians, despite the Indians being, on average, twice as rich.
-Even more remarkably, the improvement in life expectancy has
been. as great among the poor as the rich
-According to the latest United Nations (UN) Human Development
Report, Bangladesh comfortably beats India on most such social
indicators. It has lower infant and child mortality, higher life
expectancy, and does better on gender equality
-One of the few countries on the path to achieving Millennium
Development Goals

6. PUBLIC SPENDING: BANGLADESH Vs. INDIA
SPENDING INDIA BANGLADESH
(% of GDP)
EDUCATION 3% 2%
HEALTH 1% 1%
Unlike India, welfare programmes haven’t derailed
government finances:
Bangladesh’s fiscal deficit is much lower than India’s.

9. Broadly speaking, the stellar improvement
made by Bangladesh has been in the
following three aspects:
1. HEALTH (Meiji Restoration, 19th Century,
child and maternal mortality)
2. EDUCATION
3. GENDER-PARITY

10. The infant mortality rate and the
under-five mortality rate in Bangladesh
is better than
13 large Indian States, including much
richer Indian States like
Gujarat
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh.

11. ARGUMENTS OF THE NAYSAYERS
-Let us first examine the arguments of the naysayers. One set of
sceptics would argue that Bangladesh simply “exports its
poverty” to India, especially to our Northeast. But even if one
believes the most exaggerated statistics of Bangladeshi migration
to India, not more than five to six per cent of Bangladeshis seek
their livelihoods in our country.
-The second argument of the naysayers is that Bangladesh’s data
is fudged or exaggerated by the donor community to justify its
larger than life presence in the country. However, doctoring
national data at such scale is simply not possible in today’s day
and age of scrutiny by academics, researchers and sceptics.

12. SO HOW BANGLADESH IMPROVED ON ITS SOCIAL INDICATORS?
1. INCREASING REAL WAGES
2. FAMILY PLANNING---DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND
3. RESTRAIN THE FALL IN RURAL HOUSEHOLD INCOMES
4. REMITTANCES
5. INCREASED ROLE OF WOMEN
6. MORE INCLUSIVE GROWTH: Everyone reaped benefits
7. NGOs + MICROCREDIT

13. INCREASED REAL WAGES
-Increasing labour cost in China and India
-Base for Garment Industry
-High quality, lowest price in the world
-Led to migration of workers from rural areas to urban areas due
to opportunities
-Largest beneficiaries have been women
-Significantly, the share of employment in the formal sector in
Bangladesh is 27.9%, well above that in India, and the proportion
of working women in formal employment is even higher.
-India’s draconian labour laws have ensured that we miss out on
the relocation of low-cost manufacturing out of China.

14. FAMILY PLANNING--- DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND
-Pakistan Vs. Bangladesh (1975 and NOW)
-Bangladesh: World’s most densely populated country
- At independence, its leaders decided that they had to restrain further
population growth
- (China’s One Child Policy, India’s Forced Sterilization Programmes)
- Government lacked power to be coercive
- Instead:
Birth Control
Government Workers Distributed Pills and Advice
NOW, reaping benefits of ‘demographic dividend’:
number of people entering adulthood will handsomely exceed the number of
children being born, increasing the share of the total population that works

15. AGRICULTURE, YIELD, etc
-managed to restrain the fall in rural household incomes that
usually increases extreme poverty in developing countries.
-Yield and the Cropping Season
-Monsoon Crop: Aman
-Winter Crop: Boro
Decline the uncertainty associated with Monsoon Crop due to
erratic monsoons
Less shocks for households, pushing them into abject poverty

16. REMITTANCES:
-Middle East
-Send back incomes
-More well-off households benefit more (How?
INCREASED ROLE OF WOMEN:
-SHGs
-Increased payment in pocket
-Better health care for women, implies better
family planning
-Helped with gender parity

17. MICROCREDIT +NGOs
Without the state’s schools, clinics and cash-transfer
schemes, says Rehman Sobhan, the head of the Centre
for Policy Dialogue, a think-tank, other interventions
would not work. It is the things which NGOs do,
though, that make Bangladesh’s way of fighting
poverty unique.
The government of Bangladesh has been unusually
friendly to NGOs, perhaps because, to begin with, it
realised it needed all the help it could get.
Most important:
1. BRAC
2. Grameen Bank

18. BRAC (which originally stood for Bangladesh
Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, but now is
the only name the organisation needs) invented
the idea of microcredit, that is, tiny loans to the
destitute.
Grameen Bank, made them work by targeting
them on women and holding weekly meetings of
borrowers who would identify and support anyone
who was falling behind on repayments.
The poor account for roughly a fifth of the total
loan portfolio of the country, an unusually high
proportion.

19. ISSUES STILL EXISTING IN BANGLADESH
Bangladesh is still poor and crowded
Poor nutrition
Quality of Education Still Poor
With the lowest labour costs in the world (textile
workers make about $35 a month) it should be
growing faster than China, not more slowly than
India.
It is badly governed, stifled by red tape and faces
severe environmental problems.

20. GRASSROOT INSTITUITIONS
Social mobilization at local level
SHGs
Bangladesh is perhaps the best case study of NGO success anywhere in the
world.
As scholars have argued, NGOs are involved at scale in virtually every
development activity in the country, including education, health, poverty
alleviation, etc.
INCLUSIVENESS
Currently, 80 per cent of all credit to SHGs goes to the four southern States
of India — Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala — and this
needs to be broad-based nationally.
SETTLEMENT OF POLITICAL SCORES
SANITATION
Make in India: Construction of toilets, not a solution
Making the communities realize the importance