Travelling through thresholds and benchmarks

Bangladesh, which geographically lies between 20°34" and 26°38" N latitude and 88°01" and 92°41' E longitude, has an area of 147,570 Sq. km, bordered by India on three sides--West, North and East--and a short strip of land of Myanmar also borders in the East while on the south lies the Bay of Bengal with its warm blue water. The hills at its head (on the North and Eastern parts, an extension of the Himalayan ranges) keeps the country safe from cold waves from the Siberian belt and at the feet the Bay of Bengal balances the hot temperature being on the tropical cancer line. Bangladesh is a deltaic plain of the three major river systems in South Asia - the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna, while the land is formed with the alluvial soil of these rivers. Green paddy fields and vegetation are found all around. The most significant characteristic of the landscape of Bangladesh is its extensive networks of rivers and magnificently moving monsoons, contributing a great deal to shape the socioeconomic life of the country. The population of Bangladesh is over 146 million, growth rate now being 1.32% and the country is one of the most densely populated countries (990 per sq. km.) in the world. Some 80% of the population live in rural areas. Of the total population, 47% are in the civilian labour force, male 29.14% and female 17.86%. Per capita gross national income (PCGNI) is $750 in 2009. In terms of human development Index, Bangladesh ranked 146 out of 182 countries. (Human Development Index (HDI), UNDP 2009).
Historical Perspective
Bangladesh was a prosperous region of South Asia until the modern times. It had the advantages of a mild, almost tropical climate, fertile soil, ample water, and an abundance of fish, wildlife, and fruit, providing a favourable standard of living, compared with other parts of South Asia. As early as the 13th century, the region was developing as the agrarian economy. It was, however, not entirely without commercial centers, and Dhaka, in particular, grew into an important entrepôt during the Mughal Empire. The British, however, on their arrival in the early 17th century, chose to develop Kolkata as their commercial and administrative center in South Asia. The development of Bangladesh was thereafter limited to agriculture. The colonial infrastructure of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reinforced this land's function as the primary producer--chiefly rice and jute--for processors and traders in Kolkata and beyond.
Some of the same factors that had made Bangladesh a prosperous region became liabilities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As life expectancy increased, the limited land and the annual floods increasingly became constraints on economic growth. Traditional agricultural methods became obstacles to the modernisation of agriculture. Geography severely limited the development and maintenance of a modern transportation and communications system. The partition of British India and the emergence of India and Pakistan in 1947 severely disrupted the former colonial economic system that had preserved Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) as a producer of jute and rice for the urban industrial economy around Kolkata. East Pakistan had to build a new industrial base and modernise agriculture in the midst of a population explosion. The federal government of Pakistan expanded the cultivated area and some irrigation facilities, but the rural population generally became poorer between 1947 and 1971 because development did not keep pace with the rising tide of rural population. Pakistan's five-year plans opted for a development strategy based on industrialisation, but the major share of the development budget went to the then West Pakistan. The lack of natural resources meant that East Pakistan was heavily dependent on imports, creating a balance of payments problem. Without a substantial industrialisation programme or adequate agrarian expansion, the economy of East Pakistan steadily declined. Blame was on the West Pakistani leaders who not only dominated the government but also most of the fledgling industries in East Pakistan.
Macro-Economic Management
Bangladesh economy as it emerged from the liberation war in 1971 was characterised by the highest rural population density, chronic malnutrition for the majority of the people, and the dislocation of between 8 and 10 million people who had fled to India and returned to independent Bangladesh by 1972. The new nation state had few experienced entrepreneurs, managers, administrators, engineers, or technicians. There were critical shortages of essential food grains and other staples because of wartime disruptions. External markets for jute had been lost because of the supply disruption and the increasing popularity of synthetic substitutes. Foreign exchange reserves were minuscule. Commercially exploitable industrial resources, except for natural gas, were not abundant. The liberation war had crumbled the transportation system. Hundreds of road and railroad bridges had been destroyed or damaged and rolling stock was inadequate. The new country was still recovering from a severe cyclone that hit the area in 1970 and claimed the lives of 250,000 people.
After West Pakistani owners of industrial enterprises fled in 1971, the government had to take over managing and operating more than 300 medium- and large-scale industrial plants, which represented nearly 90 per cent of the value of all such enterprises in the new nation. It organised public corporations to oversee the major industries. The main government institution responsible for coordinating national rehabilitation and development was the Planning Commission, which prepared plans that directed economic priorities for five-year periods. The First Five-Year Plan covered the period July 1973 to June 1978. It was succeeded by a two-year plan, covering the period July 1978 to June 1980, which was followed by a year-long hiatus. The Second Five-Year Plan (1981-85) and the Third Five-Year Plan (1985-90) put the planning process back on track. The broad objectives of the subsequent Fourth and Fifth Five-Year Plan and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) were to reduce poverty, bring down the rate of population growth, increase exports, and domestic savings, attain self-sufficiency in food production, and realise an annual growth of gross domestic product. These ambitious goals went well beyond the previous actual performance of the economy.
Macro Economic Indicators
Through the decades, Bangladesh economy has experienced mixed developments in both macro-economic stability and robust economic growth. Against the backdrop of deeper macro-economic crisis until late 1980s, a series of stabilisation measures were taken up for Bangladesh economy, which largely restored macro-economic stability in the early 1990s. Subsequently, Bangladesh economy chalked up an average GDP growth rate of 4.8 per cent in the 1990s, which was one full percentage point higher than that recorded in the previous decade (i.e. 3.8 per cent). Despite such an impressive growth, the per capita income of Bangladesh continued to be the lowest among South Asian economies and also below the average per capita income of the least-developed countries (LDCs). Bangladesh economy was facing the most severe exigency after the macroeconomic crisis since 1970s. However, the achievements of the 1990s came under threat because of the twin shocks emanating from large fiscal deficit and deteriorating balance of payment position, which exposed the entrenched vulnerabilities of Bangladesh. The pressure was accentuated by a benign neglect in undertaking necessary reform measures to improve the competitiveness of the economy. Within the real economy sectors such as industry demonstrated stronger growth during the first half of the 1990s as against the impressive performance of agriculture all through. In fact, in the 1990s, both agriculture and industry emerged as the major source of GDP growth in compared to the more pronounced role of the service sector in the earlier .Later service sector emerged as the key lever of GDP growth and, making up a significant share.
In spite of higher growth, the evolution of Bangladesh's economy still remains biased against modern, industrial transformation having concomitant implications for sustained growth and equitable income distribution. Weaknesses in the domestic resource mobilisation effort have emerged as one of the major structural constraints facing the economy. Though the share of revenue (tax and non-tax together) in the GDP has increased from 7.5 per cent in FY 1978 to 11.4 per cent in FY08, nonetheless one observes stagnation in the revenue-GDP ratio, the revenue receipt in Bangladesh, as share to GDP, is still lower than many developing countries. The success of revenue earning since the early 1990s has been greatly triggered by the introduction of VAT. The VAT has been providing a bigger source of revenue compared to taxes it replaced, mainly in respect of taxation of domestic production. Such a feat has been possible thanks to spectacular success in meeting the revenue collection target by the NBR in recent years. The largest part of the non-tax revenue-accounting for 15-20 per cent of the revenue budget is also coming from the nationalised sector of the economy, including industrial enterprises, banks, and insurance companies.
Even by the standards of developing countries, Bangladesh's ratio of taxes to GDP, and of direct tax revenue to total tax revenue, has been very low. In 1984 taxes amounted to only 8.1 per cent of GDP, just half the percentage for India, less than half the average for 82 other developing countries, and far below the average of 29.7 per cent for the developed countries. Similarly, the 20.1 per cent of tax revenue coming from direct taxation was one of the lowest in the world (the average for developing countries was 29.3 per cent, for industrialised countries 34.2 per cent).
The development budget is presented to parliament at the same time as the revenue budget each year. Most development budgets since independence called for resource mobilisation--the majority of which was to be provided by foreign grants and loans. The bulk of capital expenditure goes to the Annual Development Programme. The records of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) do not show any constancy between original, revised and actual ADP. The Annual Development Programme directed new project financing to particular sectors, consistent with the goals of the five-year plans, in practice it has been observed that most projects are carryovers continued from previous years. Large portions of the ADPs are earmarked for power projects and infrastructure. Looking at from another perspective, each year programme calls for overall expenditure higher than the previous year, but certain sectors were to receive much greater increases than the average. Since independence these trends changed annually because demands of particular projects absorbed disproportionate amount of capital and because some sectors were more capital intensive than others.
Myth Of Self Relianc, Self Supportiveness And Aid Dependence
Independent Bangladesh, from the beginning, has been regarded as a test case for development by economists, policymakers, and programme administrators of donor countries and international financial institutions. Interest in the area predated political independence, as East Pakistan represented the world's most extreme case of population growth outstripping resources. Because Pakistan was a single country, project design and approval processes occurred at the national level. West Pakistan, also poor, appropriated most commodity aid, capital, and technical and project assistance. The people of East Pakistan considered the attention they received to be inadequate and inequitable.
In October 1974, the Bangladesh Aid Group was established under the aegis of the World Bank, with 36 participating governments and institutions. Aid to Bangladesh has remained at a high level since the consortium came into existence, although with substantial fluctuations in new commitments from year to year. In the 1980s, the value of food aid declined to around 11 to 18 per cent of new aid commitments, most of it given on a grant basis. Commodity aid--about 25 per cent of aid commitments to Bangladesh -- included key items for increasing productivity, such as fertiliser, cement, steel, pumps, and other equipment. Project assistance accounted for more than 50 per cent of new commitments. This form of aid was preferred by the largest donors because their funds are put to work in well-defined ways that can be related to policy objectives. From the beginning, the Bangladesh government has been unable to use project funds at the same rate as they are authorised. As a result, a pipeline of authorised but undisbursed project funds has grown bigger every year.
Because much of funding for the development budget in the mid-1980s was financed by external donors, the Bangladesh government had to attract financing for high-priority sectors and projects. Coordination was carried on at all times between the government and individual donors, but the keynote each year was a meeting organised by the World Bank as leader of the Bangladesh Aid Group. The World Bank has taken the lead in addressing some of the most deep-seated structural constraints in Bangladesh's economy by providing productive employment for those without assets, promoting economic opportunities for women, and addressing the social and economic inadequacies of education, health, nutrition, and population programmes. The Asian Development Bank has been the second largest donor, about half the Manila lender's financing has gone to agriculture and agro-industry. ADB has also supported transportation projects (development and improvement of feeder roads between local markets and primary roads, inland waterways, and railroads) and social welfare schemes for population control, health, and education. The United Nations Development Programme operated its own development projects and coordinated the activities of other United Nations (UN) agencies with programmes in Bangladesh, including the World Food Programme, World Health Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and United Nations Fund for Population Activities. Typically, these agencies provided technical assistance and training. They often functioned as catalysts by doing analytical and policy development work alongside Bangladesh government authorities, preparing the ground for well-conceived programmes requiring capital expenditures to be financed by other donors or even by the Bangladesh treasury. The United States was the most important donor until the early 1980s when Japanese aid reached similar levels. As Bangladesh has been hospitable to foreign assistance, in addition to the programmes of Britain, Japan, and West Germany, significant aid programs were initiated by Canada, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, and others. Each country concentrated on areas where it had special expertise and interests.
Consumptions, savings and FDI
A high intensity of domestic credit expansion in the government sector resulted in a rising level of government borrowing from both the banking system and the public through the use of savings instruments. The 1974 New Investment Policy restored certain rights to private and foreign investors. In December 1975, the Revised Investment Policy allowed greater private sector activity and authorised joint ventures with public sector corporations in a number of previously reserved areas, provided that the government retained 51 per cent ownership. The Dhaka Stock Exchange was reactivated in 1976, and the Bangladesh Investment Corporation was established the same year to provide financing for bridge construction and underwriting facilities to the private sector. Investment ceilings for private industry were abolished in 1978. Then, in 1980, the government delineated a more liberal attitude toward foreign direct investment in the Foreign Private Investment (Promotion and Protection) Act. Yet the growth of investment nonetheless remained slow, and industry was still dominated by public. The government transferred 650 industrial enterprises to private hands, leaving only 160 under public ownership. Subsequent governments announced comprehensive revision of industrial policies, setting out objectives and strategies to accelerate the pace of industrialisation. The policy also emphasised private and foreign investment in high technology, export-oriented, and labor-intensive industries. The revised policy increased the number of sectors open to private investment, liberalised the tariff structure, reduced quantitative import restrictions, and furthered privatisation of state-managed enterprises.
In 1987 an amendment to the Bangladesh Industrial Enterprises (Nationalisation) Ordinance was adopted, providing the legal basis for plans to sell up to 49 per cent of government shares in remaining nationalised enterprises. An export processing zone was established officially at the port city of Chittagong in 1980, actually begin functioning in March 1983, when a programme of inducements was offered to investors opening up enterprises. In addition to the broad policies encouraging foreign investment, Bangladesh has entered into bilateral investment treaties which included such assurances as unrestricted currency transfers, compensation for expropriation, dispute settlement procedures, and taxation treatment. In addition, Bangladesh has signed agreements for the avoidance of double taxation with 29 countries.
Even with a reasonably attractive framework in place, the flow of private capital to Bangladesh has been slow. Estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, foreign direct investment in Bangladesh averaged very insignificant. The largest amount of foreign private investment is from Asian countries--Japan foremost, with smaller amounts from South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong--and from Britain and other countries in Western Europe.
Industrialisation: trading versus manufacturing
The industrial sector produces around 10 per cent of GDP, and long-term national strategies until in the late 1980s did not anticipate a major increase in that percentage. The greatest need and the greatest opportunities remained predominantly in the agricultural sector. Prior to partition of India in 1947, Eastern Bengal was known for its fine muslin and silk fabric. The dyes, yarn, and cloth were the envy of much of the pre modern world. Bengali muslin, silk, and brocade were worn by the aristocracy of Asia and Europe. The introduction of machine-made textiles from England in the late eighteenth century spelled doom for the costly and time-consuming handloom process. Cotton growing died out in East Bengal, and the textile industry became dependent on imported yarn. Those who had earned their living in the textile industry were forced to rely more completely on farming. Only the smallest vestiges of a once-thriving cottage industry survived. Against this backdrop, the newly independent Bangladesh was one of the least industrially developed nations. Annual per capita consumption of steel and cement was only about one-third that of India, for example, and electric power consumption per capita was less than one-fifth.
The ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh is not the outgrowth of traditional economic activities but emerged from economic opportunities perceived by the private sector in the late 1970s. Frustrated by quotas imposed by importing nations, such as the United States, entrepreneurs and managers from other Asian countries set up factories in Bangladesh, benefiting from even lower labor costs than in their home countries, which offset the additional costs of importing all materials to Bangladesh. Bangladesh-origin products met quality standards of customers in North America and Western Europe, and prices were satisfactory. Business flourished right from the start; many owners made back their entire capital investment within a year or two and thereafter continued to realise great profits. Some 85 per cent of Bangladeshi production was sold to North American customers, and virtually overnight Bangladesh became the sixth largest supplier to the North American market.
After just a few years, the ready-made garment industry employed more than 200,000 people. About 80 per cent are women, never previously in the industrial work force. The net benefit to the economy is a fraction of export receipts, since virtually all materials used in garment manufacturing are imported; practically all the value added in Bangladesh is from labor until backward linkages are established.
Not the entire industrial growth in Bangladesh is stimulated by anticipation of foreign sales. The national economy stands to benefit equally from domestic production that could eliminate the need for imports of one kind or another. A good example of import substitution manufacturing is in the pharmaceutical industry, a field that attracted both foreign and domestic investment in the first decade of independence, based on the large potential domestic market.
Agro-economic success
Despite progress toward greater industrialisation, in the late 1980s agriculture still accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the value of Bangladesh's GDP. Approximately 82 per cent of the country's population lived in rural areas, virtually all of them making their living exclusively or substantially from agriculture. Domestic production increased at a relatively steady rate in the years following independence, but not fast enough to close the gap created by the continued rapid growth in population. According to official statistics, the real value of all crops and of agricultural production rose every year. Absolute production has increased, and there has been an impressive diversification into a wide variety of seeds and new crops, such as wheat and vegetables. In fact, the patterns of agriculture have been virtually transformed. A previously self-contained and self-reliant subsistence economy has given way to one dependent on inputs, credit, markets, and administrative support from outside.
The Comilla Model, which began in 1959, has been the most successful and influential example of cooperative agricultural development in Bangladesh. Projects in Comilla District provided more modern technologies to farmers: low-lift water pumps; low-cost hand-dug six-inch tube wells; pilot research on adapting thirty- five-horsepower tractors for rice cultivation; new crop and animal varieties; testing and introduction of such inputs as chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and high-yield varieties of seeds; and new storage and processing technology. These innovations attracted resources to local rural institutions against the prevailing urban orientation of the leadership elite.
Demographic dynamics and sustainability
Bangladesh, though a small country in the South Asian green belt, is the 7th most densely populated country (except for some island countries) in the world today. The country's population was about 42 million in 1951 which increased to 111.5 million in 1991. It is estimated that the current population size (about 147 million) will reach about 180.6 million by the year 2020. The young age structure, a basic characteristic of Bangladesh's population, will continue to contribute to the increasing absolute size. The 0-14 -year old group constitutes more than 46% of the total population. The broad base of the age pyramid reflects the fact that more and more children are born each year. Even if the average number of children per woman is substantially lower than what it was in the past, the young age structure will generate continued growth in the decades to come as successively larger numbers of the Bangladeshis will enter their child bearing years.
The crude death rate has gradually decreased over the past years. It dropped below 10 per 1,000 in 1995. In spite of the high Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) till today, a significant change has taken place in this respect during the past two decades: A change is also noticed in Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) over the past decade. An increase in life expectancy at birth has also taken place in the country. The contraceptive prevalence rate has been increased to 61% in 2009. Over the past few years, the total fertility rate has shown, though with fluctuations, a decreasing trend. There is a positive trend towards fertility decline.
The percentage of single women among the age groups 15-19 and 20-24 has also increased over the past few years. The increase of age at marriage has an important bearing on fertility decline. The current trend of delaying marriage, if continued, will cause fertility decline and simultaneously increase the acceptance of contraceptives. The youths are potentially the most productive force in Bangladesh. They constitute 36% of the total civilian labour force. The Government views population growth and the fertility level as too high and tries to bring them to a lower level through policy interventions.
Education
At the beginning of the 19th century, a system of liberal English-language schools based on the British model was instituted in the region, this emphasis on British education led to the growth of an elite class that provided clerical and administrative support to the colonial administration but did not develop practical skills or technical knowledge. The new elite became alienated from the masses of the people, who had no access to the new education system. During the Pakistan period, there was a general awareness of the need to restructure the education system to meet the needs of the new nation. But the impact of such policies was not felt in East Pakistan, and, with only a few exceptions, a liberal elite-based education system with very little awareness of life in the countryside was in place when Bangladesh became independent.
In the 1981 census only 19.7 per cent of the total population was counted as literate. The literacy rate was 17 per cent in rural areas and 35 per cent in urban areas. The urban-rural gap shrank slightly between 1961 and 1981, primarily because of the influx of rural Bangladeshis to urban areas. The adult literacy rate in 2008 remained about equal to the 2001 level. The education system also had had a discriminatory effect on the education of women in a basically patriarchal society. The female literacy rate in 1981 (13.2 per cent) was about half the literacy rate among men (26 per cent) nationally. The gap was even greater in rural areas, where 11.2 per cent women and 23 per cent of men were literate. (In 1988 the literacy rate was 18 per cent for women and 39 per cent for men.) The national school attendance rate in 1982 was 58.9 per cent for ages 5 to 9; 20.9 per cent for ages 10 to 14; and 1.9 per cent for ages 15 to 24. The estimated 1988 student-teacher ratio was fifty-four to one in primary schools, twenty-seven to one in secondary schools, and thirteen to one in universities. Approximately 10 million students of all ages attended school in 1981.
The base of the school system was five years of primary education. Recognising the importance of increasing enrollments and improving quality, the government made universal primary education a major objective of its educational development plans, which focussed on increasing access to school, improving teacher training, and revising the primary school curricula. The five years of lower secondary (grades six through ten) concluded with a secondary school certificate examination. Students who passed this examination proceeded to two years of higher secondary or intermediate training, which culminated in a higher secondary school examination after grade twelve. Development efforts in the late 1980s included programmes to provide low-cost vocational education to the rural populace. Efforts also focussed on the establishment of science teaching facilities in rural schools, as compulsory science courses were introduced at the secondary level. The government also had provided training for science teachers and supplies of scientific equipment. In spite of many difficulties over the years, the number of both secondary schools and students, particularly females, increased steadily. Enrollment in technical and vocational schools increased in a similar manner. Secondary education for the most part was private but was heavily subsidised by the state budget. Nationalisation of private schools has been a standing government policy.
Development of the education system depended largely on the supply of trained teachers. Contributing to the shortage of trained teachers was the low socioeconomic standing of educators. The social image of teachers had been gradually eroded, making it difficult to recruit young graduates to the profession. The high proportion of poorly trained teachers led to lower standards of instruction. To remove the heavy bias toward liberal arts education, greater attention was being focussed in the late 1980s on technical education, which is receiving the third highest allocation, after primary and secondary education, in recent years.
Human development
Between 1980 and 2007, Bangladesh's HDI rose by 1.86% annually from 0.328 to 0.543 today. HDI scores in all regions have increased progressively over the years although all have experienced periods of slower growth or even reversals.
The HDI for Bangladesh in 2009 is 0.543, which gives the country a rank of 146th out of 182 countries with data. The Human Poverty Index (HPI-1) which focusses on the proportion of people below certain threshold levels in each of the dimensions of the human development index - living a long and healthy life, having access to education, and a decent standard of living. The HPI-1 value of 36.1% for Bangladesh, ranks 112th among 135 countries for which the index for 2009 was calculated. The gender-related development index (GDI), which measures achievements by capturing inequalities in achievement between women and men. The greater the gender disparity in basic human development, the lower is a country's GDI relative to its HDI. Bangladesh's GDI value, 0.536 should be compared to its HDI value of 0.543. Its GDI value is 98.7% of its HDI value. Out of 155 countries with both HDI and GDI values, 100 countries have a better ratio than Bangladesh's. The gender empowerment measure (GEM) reveals whether women take an active part in economic and political life and tracks the share of seats in parliament held by women; of female legislators, senior officials and managers; and of female professional and technical workers- and the gender disparity in earned income, reflecting economic independence. Bangladesh ranked 108th in 2009 out of 109 countries in the GEM, with a value of 0.264. Bangladesh has an emigration rate of 4.5%. The major continent of destination for migrants from Bangladesh is Asia with 92.4% of emigrants living there. In 2007, expatriates sent home US$6,562 million. Average remittances per person were US$41, compared with India of $30, Pakistan $37, Nepal $61 and Sri Lanka $131.
Poverty alleviation
In an assessment of statistics on poverty based on human development indicators, UN Human Development Report points out that 86% of the people of Bangladesh live below the poverty line (UNDP, 1993). Though there has been a little long-term improvement in poverty situation, depending on the economic and environmental conditions, large fluctuations prevailed in the incidence of poverty over time. Beginning from 1973, successive development plans in Bangladesh have highlighted the issue of poverty. The plans also suggested a number of strategies to face the challenge. The First Five Year Plan (1973-78), placed emphasis on a socialistic restructuring of the economy so that the benefits of development could be distributed more equitably among the different groups of people. The Second Five Year Plan (1980-85) made a renewed effort for bringing in the poverty issue to the forefront through its emphasis on basic needs. In reality, its main concern became the reduction of the socialistic bias in the economy in favor of greater reliance on market economy and promotion of the private sector. The Third Five Year Plan (1985-90) brought forward the idea of group-based plan on the basis of a Social Accounting Matrix using an Applied General Equilibrium Model. In practice its main pre-occupation was to face the new challenges like aid conditionality, which were thrust upon the nation while pursuing macro-economic stability and rapid structural reform. The Third Five Year Plan noted that poverty, unemployment, rapid population growth, malnutrition, illiteracy all are interactive and needed to be addressed simultaneously in the macro plans with both short and long term perspectives.
Against the background of a rising trend in the number of landless, small and marginal holdings in Bangladesh, and the process of depeasantisation and pauperisation, the Fourth Five Year Plan announced a comprehensive approach towards poverty alleviation. The Fourth Five Year Plan (1990-95), emphasised on poverty alleviation through human resources development as its most important planning objective. The Fourth Five Year Plan recognised the role of safety net projects of both the Governmental Organisation (GOs) and NGOs, but insisted that the primary emphasis for poverty alleviation should be given through bringing the poor and the disadvantaged from the periphery to the center of the development process. An overview of the Five Year Plans and other policy documents including PRSP of the GOB on rural development indicate that poverty alleviation has always been a core concern of the development programmes. It also depicts a trend of priority attachment to poverty alleviation in terms of objectives and strategies. A follow-up review of this policy statement might manifest that, in effect, in most cases, no serious attempts have been made to translate such policies into concrete programmes and projects within a coherent institutional framework. The sectoral programmes, particularly in agriculture, health, social welfare, infrastructure development, and water resource development, should have been designed, not in isolation but having considerable focus on poverty alleviation. Empirical data also indicate the fact that the actual disbursement of resources to poverty alleviation programmes during the most plan periods has been far low compared to the actual allocations. Consequently, the employment targets set by the Five Year Plans (Fops) could not be achieved. In aggregate the Fops failed to generate about 3.9 million new jobs as against the target (PKSF, 1992).
Preservation of natural resources
One of the country's few mineral resources is natural gas, which is the basis for nitrogenous fertiliser production sufficient to meet the country's needs. Estimated national reserves range from 182 billion to 623 billion cubic meters. All production is consumed domestically. About 40 per cent of production is used for generating power, nearly 40 per cent for producing fertiliser, and the rest divided among industrial, commercial, and household uses. In western Bangladesh there are substantial proven reserves of coal, but they remained unexploited, largely because of the absence of major prospective users in the area. Bangladesh holds unknown quantities of commercially exploitable reserves of petroleum, both on land and offshore. The domestic addition did not in itself have much of an impact on energy use in Bangladesh, but it has been a beginning of the hopes for further development.
Electric power is generated by a hydroelectric complex in the Chittagong Hills and thermal plants in Chittagong and several locations in central and western Bangladesh. Electric power outages and restrictions on peak-period consumption are a serious problem, resulting in substantial productivity losses for industrial concerns. There has also been substantial losses in the transmission and distribution of electric power, including many unauthorised hookups to the system. But however, rural electrification has been able to transform economic life: within weeks a profusion of consumer goods appears, and demand for electric irrigation pumps soars.At the household level, Bangladesh is the prime example of a country where biofuel supplies (chiefly for cooking) come from the agricultural sector. According to data gathered biomass energy for fuel use comes from crop residues (jute sticks, rice straw, rice hulls, sugarcane refuse, and other waste products), 24 per cent from animal dung, and the remainder from firewood, twigs, and leaves. The firewood typically comes from village trees. The importance of cereal straws means that household energy supply is highly sensitive to changes in agricultural practices and economics and that agricultural policies need to take this into account. The future availability of these fuels might become a critical issue, as such, new energy resources should have to come from commercial sources.
Environment and climate change
Bangladesh is more exposed than any other country to global warming, while a series of extreme events - from dying trees to freak weather - suggest its impact is already being felt. The Sundarbans nature reserve in the south-west is one of the last untouched places on Earth - and home to the largest population of tigers left in the wild, but the trees there have suddenly started dying, they have started dying in a way nobody has seen before, from the top down. The Sundarbans may be one of the first casualties of rising sea levels caused by global warming. The weather in Bangladesh is going crazy. Also, there were the strange events of 2004, when the tides on the estuaries of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers stopped ebbing and flowing. The water level just stayed at high tide. The capital, Dhaka, is hit by floods so severe the ground floors of most buildings are under water, and a catfish was caught in one of the government buildings. In 2005, the country had no winter at all.
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The entire country is basically one vast river delta, and that has always left it at the mercy of weather extremes. Climate experts say the weather is growing more extreme - and becoming unpredictable. And this is the most densely populated country in the world, leaves a worrying question: what happens to those 147 million people if parts of this already overcrowded country become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Scientists have measured small rise in the sea level at various points around the coast, and almost all of Bangladesh lies less than 10m (30ft) above sea level. If the classic scenario is flooding, there is a risk that climate change may bring drought instead. Already, the north-west of the country faced an unprecedented drought in recent years, when the monsoon rains failed, and had to resort to pumping ground water for irrigation. The irony is that the north-west was experiencing a drought even as the north-east was suffering its heaviest rainfall ever.
Bangladesh is taking the problem seriously.With its own annual carbon dioxide emissions only 172kg (380lb) per capita, compared to 21 tonnes in the US, Bangladesh has some reason to feel aggrieved to be suffering from the effects of climate change before others do. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must be protected from the negative effects of climate change, according to the United Nations development chief. The country's vulnerability to climate change was a key focus of talks between the Administrator and the Hon'ble Prime Minister. The Montreal Protocol was signed by Bangladesh in 1990. The London Amendment was ratified in 1994, and the Copenhagen Amendment was signed in 1996. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed by Bangladesh in 1992. The International Convention to Combat Desertification in Countries Experiencing Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa, was signed in 1994 and ratified in 1995 by Bangladesh. A project aimed at establishing an Ozone Cell in the Department of Environment of the Ministry of Environment and Forest to phase out ozone depleting substances has been in progress with the support of the Montreal Multilateral Fund.
Basically, Bangladesh's development is impacted by its unique geographic location, domestic environmental degradation and climate variability. Bangladesh is situated on the second largest river system in the world, which drains an area of 1,086,000 square kilometers from China, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. This unique location results in annual flooding of approximately 50 per cent of the country's land area. Degradation of natural capital and biodiversity has a serious and direct impact on food security, nutrition and income of the poor. At the current pace, average temperatures are expected to rise between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100. Even a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise will submerge 20-22 per cent of Bangladesh's landmass, impacting 20-25 million people and increasing the frequency and severity of flooding.
Health
Bangladesh, though, developed a basic health care infrastructure in the 1980s, much remained to be done, particularly in rural areas, where the majority of the people are facing critical health problems. The main dangers to health in the late 1980s were much the same as they were at the time of independence. The incidence of communicable disease was extensive, and there was widespread malnutrition, inadequate sewage disposal, and inadequate supplies of safe drinking water. The fertility rate was also extremely high. Only 30 per cent of the population had access to primary health care services, and overall health care performance remained unacceptably low by all conventional measurements. Communicable diseases were the major health hazards in the 1980s. Poor nutrition and sanitation fostered the spread of infections. Infectious diseases--cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and poliomyelitis--and parasitic diseases such as malaria, filariasis, and helminthiasis-- were responsible for widespread illness and numerous deaths. Disease in the late 1980s was most prevalent in rural areas; treatment was more readily available in the cities. A mid-1980s survey indicated that deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition, and pneumonia accounted for 16.3 per cent, 13.1 per cent, and 10.8 per cent of all deaths, respectively. The percentages for other diseases were as follows: pre-maturity and birth injury (8.6 per cent), cardiovascular ailment (4.5 per cent), tetanus (4.4 per cent), pulmonary tuberculosis (3.3 per cent), measles (2.7 per cent), and other causes (36.3 per cent).
Young children suffered disproportionately from diseases, and they accounted for 40 per cent of deaths annually. By the late 1980s, a massive immunisation programme had eliminated smallpox, and highly effective treatments had contained cholera. Malaria, however, once thought to have been eradicated, again had become a major health problem by 1988. The ongoing malaria control programme needed to be strengthened by improving indigenous scientific knowledge of the disease and by spraying wider areas with effective chemicals. Several national and international research facilities were involved in disease control research.
Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, mental illness, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, respiratory disease, and urogenital diseases were increasing in frequency in the 1980s. Cases of vitamin A deficiency causing night blindness and xerophthalmia, iron deficiency anemia, iodine deficiency, protein-calories deficiency, and marasmus also were on the rise. Although no incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) had been reported in Bangladesh through mid-1988, the National Committee on AIDS was formed in April 1986. The committee drew up a short-term action plan that called for public awareness programmes, augmented laboratory testing facilities, training of relevant personnel, publication of informational booklets, and health education programmes.
National health policy objectives are to provide a minimum level of health care services for all, primarily through the construction of health facilities in rural areas and the training of health care workers. A national drug policy promulgated in 1982 was aimed at simplifying the range of drugs available and at improving the logistics of drug distribution at reasonable prices.
Disaster management
Bangladesh being an alluvial deltaic plain is divided into three zones, namely hills, terraces and flood plain. Bangladesh economy depends predominantly on agriculture that has strong linkage with seasonal weather systems. Due to the geographical location, the country frequently suffers from devastating natural hazards, of which floods, cyclones with accompanying storm surges, tornadoes, river-bank erosion, drought and earthquake are the most disastrous to mention. Bangladesh being in close proximity with the Himalayas, the country has a long history of seismic tremors. Four great earthquakes of magnitude exceeding 8 during 1897, 1905, 1934, 1950 and another 10 earthquakes exceeding magnitude belt during the last 100 years. The colossal losses of lives and properties caused by natural disasters with repeated frequency in short intervals make Bangladesh as one of the most disaster prone countries in the world.
Relief and recovery activities are now planned within an all-risk management framework, seeking enhanced capacities of at-risk communities and thereby lowering their vulnerability to specific hazards. In line with the paradigm shift from relief and response to comprehensive disaster management. As part of the paradigm shift earlier, the Disaster Management Bureau (DMB) was set up as a professional unit at the national level back in 1992 under the then Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief. DMB was assigned to perform specialist support functions working in close collaboration with District and Thana/Upazila level; authorities and the line ministries concerned under the overall authority of high level Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMDMCC). Based on the existing achievements and focusses on the 'gaps' in current disaster related project interventions, there has been a growing recognition in Bangladesh that renewed efforts should be directed toward more comprehensive programming that contextualises all elements of disaster handling within a broader risk management framework and in doing so creates a more coordinated programming environment. Accordingly, in mid 1999 the government along with UNDP and other development partners agreed to address the issue of risk reduction in a more comprehensive programmatic approach.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid, former Secretary to the Government of Bangladesh and former Chairman, NBR, mazid1273@hotmail.com