The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF South Asia), Regional Office in New Delhi, India organized an online discussion titled, “Bangladesh: Henry Kissinger’s basket case is an economic success” on 7 April 2022. Dr Najmul Hossain, Country Representative of FNF Bangladesh, moderated the session. The panelists of the discussion were as follows: Mr. Tarikul Ghani, an advisor to Manabik Shahajya Sangstha (MSS) and Dr. Zaidi Sattar, the founding chairperson of Policy Research Institute (PRI) of Bangladesh. The discourse looks back at the growth story of Bangladesh through the perspective of a sustainable economy, poverty reduction, and the impact of information technology in development.
The session started with an inaugural address by Maik Schnierer, Program Executive at the Munich Office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. He stated that, “In 2021 Bangladesh celebrated its golden jubilee of independence. Labeled as a "basket case" by Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state in 1972, this young nation stands today as a template of growth and economic success. Bangladesh started as a country with a low income per capita along with nations as Chad, Rwanda, Burundi, and Nepal. Today, the country has crossed the per capita income threshold of USD 2000, with a GDP of about USD 355 billion, securing itself a position in the top forty economies of the world in terms of GDP. So, our today's discussions will look back into the story of growth.”
Subsequently, Dr. Christoph Hoffmann, a liberal politician and member of the German Bundestag, initiated the discussion with a keynote address for everyone. He remarked, “The country Bangladesh has made various progress economically, and business wise, social and health service in good conditions. From being an extremely poor country in the 1970s. Today, Bangladesh is confidently marching towards becoming a middle-income country before the whole decade will be over. It will be graduating from a middle-income country and that is quite a huge accomplishment. While Bangladesh’s journey over the last 50 years is highly admirable. In the coming years and decades, it will have to address challenges to support or even excel compared to its past performance. From my perspective, Bangladesh has become an important partner of Germany. And it is one of my goals as a member of the German parliament to further ease the cooperation and ties between Bangladesh and Germany, as this will be a solution where everyone benefits.”
Afterward, the moderator, Dr Najmul Hossain, briefly introduced the esteemed panelists of the session and presented a short video on Bangladesh’s success. Following that, Dr. Zaidi Sattar shared his outlook on Bangladesh’s tremendous developments. He proclaimed, “Bangladesh, has fulfilled all the requirements for graduating out of LDC status in 2026. Now, the question is, how did that happen? My fundamental answer is, of course, it is the toils and sweat of workers, of people, workers, farmers, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and NGOs all put together the effort by his diligent people all around. And the net result of mind efforts of all these variety, various groups of popular people in the country did produce the result. If you hear Henry Kissinger's prediction, one would be extremely disappointed. But here is Bangladesh that surprises people. But I would say it is not a surprise. It is not a paradox. It is the result of the efforts, hard toil and sweat of Bangladesh, people who are its main resources, we do not need mineral resources, mineral resources can be a curse, but people are not a curse.”
Consequently, panelist, Tarikul Islam Ghani, highlighted Bangladesh’s journey to success by saying, “The systemic exploitation of the then East Pakistan, followed by a massive destruction of the economy, infrastructure and livelihoods caused by the Liberation War, posed insurmountable challenge to the government of the day. Millions of people returned home from India in a war-ravaged country and had no food, no shelter, no medical help, and other basic needs. It is at this point that Mr. Henry Kissinger called us a basket case. If he were there today, I am sure you would have edited his comments. Now after seeing the progress that we have made over the years in the past 50 years. To be precise. It is in this context is that the first generation of Bangladeshi NGOs appeared, primarily focusing on relief and rehabilitation.”
Furthermore, Mr. Ghani added, “It is well known that since the 1980s, Bangladesh has made astonishing progress in a wide variety of development indicators, such as reducing the prevalence of extreme hunger and poverty, increasing primary education, enrollment rates, and reducing child and maternal mortality, among others. This progress has been mirrored by an impressive record of sustained GDP growth, spending decades, much, if not most, of Bangladesh's development has happened outside the purview of successive governments. For example, the 2003 four World Bank report showed that 34.1% of the foreign aid costs distributed for the NGO sector. The vibrant community of NGOs and civil society organizations working across the spectrum of development issues have been the principal drivers of progress. Undoubtedly, things like reducing poverty have been an enormous success. So, these are some of the contributions that NGOs have made to the development of Bangladesh and over the past 50 years and taking the country where it is today.”
The insightful panel discussion concluded with an enjoyable cultural performance and a Q&A session. In the Q&A session, Tarikul Islam Ghani commented that, “we lack on the democratization front, we have not made advances rather, we have come back several notches on the Democratic Front. Although we look forward to having more participatory elections, more representative parliament, were hoping that credible elections will come. And I personally believe that economic development cannot be sustained without people's participation in the political and the social processes.”
Likewise, speaking on how politics affects the economy Dr. Zaidi Sattar claimed that, “I can tell you as a general observation, that democratic regimes in Bangladesh has had been able to generate higher growth and greater poverty reduction, then an authoritarian government. I have seen is that political governments, democratically elected political governments have tended to have more authority and when it came to reform, they could implement significant sometimes even radical reform.”
Lastly, Wolfgang Heinze, Head of Sri Lanka & Bangladesh Offices of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, supplied an expression of gratitude to all the honorable panelists and the attendees.
Apart from showcasing markers of economic and societal growth, Bangladesh has also seen a transition toward digitization, which has effectively given rise to a growing pool of entrepreneurs who are positively impacting lives in both urban and rural societies, such as through greater financial inclusion. Bangladesh is now a role model for other developing countries, owing to the participation of many stakeholders in both the public and private sectors. The online seminar referred to this theme of progress through the lenses of a sustainable economy, poverty reduction, and the impact of information technology in development.