Bangladesh is a Least Developed Country (LDC) with heaps of problems characterizing our everyday life. But in spite of all odds, it is marching ahead weathering the storms on social and political fronts. Its success in economic development has been widely acclaimed by all quarters. This success has been confirmed by the United Nations through its declaration of Bangladesh as a Lower Middle Income country recently as its per capita income is USD 1080. This will obviously make our bid to achieve middle income country status by 2021 easier.
Bangladesh Government has been pursuing massive programmes to become a middle income country by 2021. Bangladesh has also attained significant success in reducing mother and child mortality rates, health services, online services (to make a digital Bangladesh within 2021), empowering women to get a better share of GDP (Gross Domestic Products). Our GDP is higher than that of other developed countries but it is not the happiest country among them.
GHI (Gross Happiness Index) better known as GNH (Gross National Happiness) is a concept that indicates sustainable development and should take a holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of well-being. Here "well being" refers to fulfilling the conditions of "good life". Gross National Happiness index is an index developed from 33 indictors categorized under 9 domains.
The government of Bangladesh shall be complying with GNH index and SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) as recommended by the UN. In addition, the government should include "well being" indicators in GDP and in this way we can avail the ultimate benefits of being a middle income country.
Mohammad Iftekhar Hossain
EMBA Student
Jahangirnagar University
2iftekharhossain@gmail.com
GDP vs GHI
FE Team | Published: July 12, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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