Economic Growth and Social Progress

Bangladesh’s incredible transformation from a less developed economy to a lower-middle-­income economy deserves special mention. It may also be a useful lesson for today’s low-income countries. Interestingly, critics were not sure about Bangladesh’s sustainability as an independent nation. Once dubbed as a “basket case” by Henry Kissinger at its birth in 1971, the country faced severe disruptions, such as famine, natural calamities, military coups, and fanaticism. Despite the challenges, Bangladesh’s performance based on select socio-economic parameters has been better than that of many developing economies. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country grew by 6.94% during the financial year 2020–21, while the per capita income increased to $2,591. To ass­ess such a success story, S Narayan and Sreeradha Datta edited a volume: Bangladesh at 50: Development and Challenges. It contains 11 chapters with a foreword by Rehman Sobhan to document above-mentioned interesting but complex narrative of notable progress in the areas of economic development, trade, industry, environment, and energy. It also accomplishes the task within the comfortable setting of Bangladesh’s success story in her 50th anniversary of ­independence. The editors specify that

A country, which at the time of its independence in 1971, was considered too poor to succeed, has over the years, and through successive changes in its government, managed to achieve considerable progress in terms of development as well as social welfare parameters. (p 1)