The country's towns and cities are largely being developed without policy guidelines. Unplanned urbanisation is thus causing multiple problems for the city dwellers, not to speak of the government itself.
A report published in the FE this week revealed that a draft national urbanisation policy was prepared a decade ago. It was also placed before the cabinet in 2010. The cabinet sent it back for further scrutiny. Since then, there is no follow-up move for its approval by the authorities concerned.
An inter-ministerial tug of war, as the critics say, is responsible for the policy to remain in cold storage. The Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED) and the Urban Development Directorate (UDD) reportedly disagreed on some points over the policy's area of coverage. Such agencies are largely responsible for urban development of the country.
The Bangladesh Urban Forum (BUF), a public-private partnership-based national platform, framed the draft policy with the aim of bringing urbanisation under a specific guideline and removing existing problems in the country's cities and town.
Despite unplanned urbanisation and hazardous infrastructural growth in the cities and towns, the government appears to be unruffled by the after-effects of the situation. The draft policy, if implemented, could, as some analysts suggest, bring urbanisation under a particular framework. As the cities are growing without any guideline, it is somewhat baffling that there are no specific definitions of the country's small, medium and large cities and towns, until now.
There, as urban policy planners say, must be some guidelines on urbanisation, decentralisation and development of a town or city where safety measures along with all civic amenities would be available for the citizens of the country.
Coordination among ministries concerned should see the policy go through in right time, offering incoming urban migrants with jobs, education and many other facilities. Urbanisation is, no doubt, helping the economy to grow as people do migrate for better opportunities. New windows of opportunities also open for business and economic activities.
Bangladesh, according to a recent World Bank (WB) publication, is in need of developing its major cities in terms of economic activities and structural transformation to reach the status of a middle-income country by 2021 -- the year that coincides with the 50th anniversary of its independence.
In order to reach the middle-income status, the country needs to accelerate the pace of its economic growth performance and undergo a structural transformation that will change its economic landscape. Also, for expediting the growth process, Bangladesh needs cities that are more capable of innovating ideas and programmes for better internal connectivity and proper harnessing of the export potential in external markets, and improving conditions for habitat.
Developing the cities with improved infrastructural facilities and greater economic activities is a critical task for any government.
At present, about 25-30 per cent of the country's population live in urban areas and the number is expected to rise to nearly 50 per cent by 2050. There is a strong need for institutionalising a national development planning authority to maintain hierarchy of the national agencies, which work on urban planning and management.
Due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, the country is currently experiencing a decline in its farm land by one per cent each year. If this trend continues, Bangladesh's food security is like to come under a serious threat.
The government has to ensure planned urbanisation and decentralisation of the administration and devolution of development activities to achieve the goal and reduce disparity between urban and rural areas.
As the country has an exceptionally high population density, it needs equally high economic density to reach the status of a middle-income economy. And the highly competitive urban areas can only sustain high economic density.
The urban transition, as things stand now, is not yielding all its potential economic benefits, because the cities in Bangladesh have otherwise extremely poor infrastructure and low level of services.
Dhaka city, to cite an example, should be more vibrant, liveable and economically diverse to help the country reach its much-coveted middle-income status. The capital has an advantage in areas of productivity among other cities and urban centres because of its unrivalled access to labour and markets.
However, Dhaka is otherwise falling behind in accessibility and liveability index due to its high congestion and severe constraints in land and housing markets. The city also needs to gain a competitive edge in higher-value-added products and services, as garment factories tend to de-concentrate on its rapidly growing outskirts.
Like many other developing countries, the growth of urbanisation in Bangladesh has been following a rapid and unplanned course since long. It has its wide-ranging and often far-reaching consequences that are now being experienced by the society and the economy.
Against this backdrop, urban poverty as a by-product of the whole process has appeared at the forefront of the country's national problems. For Bangladesh, the growing pattern of urban poverty has thus become a major concern on all counts. But the related problems are yet to be redressed properly. It is largely because of its inadequate institutional and policy frameworks and lack of proper understanding of the dynamics of the problem.
As a result of the population 'explosion' in urban areas, the extent and intensity of urban poverty may further deteriorate in the country. In this context, rural-urban migration and urban poverty will become a severe challenge to promoting sustainable development, if the country fails to understand the dynamics of migration and urban poverty, and take steps to mitigate this situation.
A comprehensive urbanisation policy, coupled with action-oriented strategies to address the problems of urban life, is therefore an urgent priority for Bangladesh. The sooner the policy is approved and implemented, the better for the country.
szkhan@dhaka.net
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