Marginal prosperity

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Shamsul Huq Zahid | Published: November 09, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

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Bangladesh's ranking deteriorated in this year's Global Prosperity Index, prepared by the London-based Legatum Institute.
In 2015, the country ranked 103rd among 142 countries. This year, the ranking is 114th among 149 nations.
But a slip by 11 steps in the ranking does not depict entirely all the positives and negatives that the Legatum Institute has said in its latest Prosperity Index about Bangladesh.
Many tend to gauze the prosperity of a country in terms of the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP).
But the Legatum Prosperity Index (LPI) does take into account not only GDP but also a broad set of metrics to measure prosperity.  The metrics in question are business environment, governance, health, safety and security, personal freedom, social capital and natural environment.
Had GDP been the only yardstick, Bangladesh would have climbed up the LPI ladder by quite a number of steps.
The Index has recognised Bangladesh's achievement in 'Economic Quality' sub-index, saying that the country's most significant attainment lies in its economic growth rate. Bangladesh, according to the Index, has gone up by 20 notches since 2007 to 87th place in economic quality sub-index.
The people of Bangladesh, according to the LPI, have the highest satisfaction with living standards in the region.  Other positive sides it noted included improvements in life expectancy at birth, decline in poverty rate.
The Index has also placed Bangladesh at the top in South Asian region in terms of safety and security. The placement might find quite a number of sceptics. But the Legatum Institute has a few points to substantiate its observation.  It said, "Unlike other countries with a more turbulent past, Bangladesh has not experienced any ethnic or civil war casualties or battle field deaths over the last decades. On an individual level, 80 per cent of Bangladeshis feel safe walking home alone at night and less than 15 per cent have had property stolen in the last twelve months."
However, Bangladesh has seen its ranking go down by 14 places to 76th in 2016 since 2009 in the 'Safety and Security' sub-index because of the rise in religious extremism combined with a range of natural disasters. The Index maintains that availability of adequate food and shelter has declined significantly and political terror scale has increased in Bangladesh.
The country's scorecard in areas of health is also not that bad. It has been ranked 99th among 149 countries. In areas of governance and business environment the rankings were 109th and 116th.  Its worst scorecard is in the area of natural environment. Vulnerability to natural disasters, poor land-man ratio and exposure of the population to pollution are among the major environmental problems that Bangladesh is facing now.  
Bangladesh, in fact, is marginally prosperous. According to LPI, the country with a prosperity score of 50.69 points has marginal 0.73 point prosperity surplus, meaning that its wealth is broadly delivering the prosperity, no matter how small it is.
While pointing out 'significant' achievement in some sub-indexes, the LPI has not forgotten the fragility of Bangladesh's laudable successes in the 'economic quality' sub index. The lack of diversity in its export basket, proneness to natural calamities and external financial shocks are among the few weaknesses that the LPI has referred to.
Despite doing well in some indicators, Bangladesh's prosperity being very marginal might prove to be short-lived unless obstacles to acquiring durable prosperity are removed and actions are put in place to do well in all the metrics used in measuring prosperity. Quality governance and positive business environment are two important factors that might help a long way to gain prosperity by a great measure.
However, metaphorically speaking, prosperity is something more than amassing wealth. Happiness and joy are two important ingredients of prosperity. They are important both at individual and national levels. Rich states thus are not always prosperous states. With economic prosperity, it is important to ensure joy and happiness for its population in a broader sense.   
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