Bangladesh at a glance

 Geography

• Bangladesh is situated in the north-east of South Asia. It is guarded by the Himalayas in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the south, the gangetic plains of Indian West Bengal, and the almost impassable forest of Myanmar and India to the east.
   

• A deltaic region, much of the country's land area has been built up from alluvial deposits from the major rivers. The land is mostly flat except for a range of hills in the south-east and it is characterised by wooded marsh lands and jungles with forest regions

History

• The earliest mention of Bangladesh is in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata from the 9th century B.C. It is thought that there was then a strong Mongoloid presence. Soon after, in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. came the Aryans from Central Asia and the Dravidians from Western India. They were followed by the Guptas, Palas and Senas, who were Buddhist and Hindu.
   

• The 13th century A.D marked the beginning of a series of Muslim invasions that was to last for 500 years. From the 15th century the Europeans, namely Portuguese, Dutch, French and British traders exerted an economic influence over the region. British political rule over the region began in 1757 A.D. when the last Muslim ruler of Bengal was defeated.
   

• After the end of British rule in 1947 the land was divided along religious lines, creating a central, predominantly Hindu, India, and a separate independent state of Pakistan. As the majority of Muslims lived in the extreme east and west of the country, the British decided to split Pakistan into two geographical parts – East and West – with a single government (housed in Lahore, in the West).
   

• Present day Bangladesh was then known as East Pakistan. But the movement for autonomy started within a couple of years because of linguistic, cultural and economic disparity between the two wings. The seeds of independence were sown through the Language Movement of 1952 that established Bangla as the state language.
   

• In December 1971, after the bloody nine-month-long War of Liberation, the then East Pakistan emerged as the sovereign and independent state of Bangladesh (land of Bangla). It is uncertain how many Bangladeshis were killed during the war, but commonly cited estimates fall in the range of 300,000 to 3000,000.

Political context

• The country is officially known as the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. It has a Parliamentary form of Government. The President is the Head of State and the Government is headed by the Prime Minister.
   

• Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (alias Bangabandhu), became the first Prime Minister of the independent Bangladesh. He was the leader of the Awami League, and is seen as the father of the independence movement. He was also the father of the present leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina. Bangabandhu was assassinated in 1975.
   

• Major Ziaur Rahman founded the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and, following Bangabandhu's death, declared himself president via a military coup. He was married to the present leader of the BNP, Khaleda Zia, and his assassination in 1981 ushered in a further nine years of military-backed régimes.
   

• The first democratic parliamentary elections took place in 1991 with the instalment of a centre-right BNP government headed by Khaleda Zia.
   

• The second general elections, held in June 1996 under a non-partisan Caretaker Government, resulted in the return to power of the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina. In 1999 the BNP formed a four-party opposition alliance.
   

• The third parliamentary elections took place in October 2001, again under a Caretaker Government and the BNP alliance won with a two-thirds majority. The term ended in October 2006.
   

• In Bangladesh, politics pervades all socio-economic organisations and political violence is widespread. The political climate is marked by bitter animosity between rival parties and leaders, especially between the Awami League on one side and the BNP and Islamist parties on the other.
   

• The run-up to the 2007 parliamentary elections has been characterised by acute differences between the major parties regarding the composition and functioning of the Election Commission and the Caretaker Government. In an unprecedented move, President Iajuddin Ahmed was sworn in as Chief Advisor in October 2006, thereby serving as both Head of State and of Government during the interim government period.   He resigned as Chief Advisor in January 2007 and was replaced by Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank. With a state of emergency presently in force, the parliamentary elections have now been postponed.The pre-election period has been marred by violence resulting in deaths and many injuries.

Extremism

• Terrorism has emerged as a major challenge in Bangladesh in recent years. There have been numerous attacks at shrines, university events, and judicial offices. In August 2005 a highly coordinated nationwide series of explosions took place. Between 300 and 460 bombs are estimated to have been detonated.
   

• The majority of these attacks have been attributed to extremist Islamist parties, such as the Jamaatuul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB) and the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB). Although the government outlawed these parties in February 2005, attacks have continued.
   

• The Government has taken other steps to tackle terrorism and several key ringleaders have been convicted and face the death penalty for their role in atrocities.

Human Rights

• Bangladesh has an encouraging legal framework to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights; there is a generally open, democratic, multi-party system with freedoms of expression and assembly, and Bangladesh has ratified all the main international human rights treaties. In spite of this, however, the country is marred by a poor human security situation.
   

• There are widespread abuses and infringements of civil rights by security forces. Each year there are over one hundred cases of extrajudicial killings by law-enforcing agencies, the majority of which are carried out by the special security force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), followed by the police. Many deaths are attributed to "crossfire".
   

• Ethnic and religious minority groups, such as the Urdu-speaking Bihari Bangladeshis and Hindus, face persecution. The low-caste Hindu Dalits, (Untouchables) are treated as pariahs.
   

• There is a free press but journalists face a regular threat of violence and a culture of impunity reigns over violent attacks by extremists against journalists and political/human rights activists. Lax enforcement of most economic and social rights contributes to a poor state of governance.
   

• Women still form a marked underclass. Around 50% of women are estimated to have experienced domestic violence. The ratio of female to male earned income is 0.54[1]. and although the leaders of the two main political parties are female, women still only hold 8.3% of the parliamentary seats[2].
   

• The situation for children is alarming. Almost 50% of children are underweight for their age, 1 million live on the streets and about 17% are involved in child labour and at least 3 million children of primary school age receive no education. Bangladesh has nonetheless made important progress in several key areas, including achieving gender parity in primary education.
   

• There are currently around 20,000 Rohingya refugees living in degrading conditions in the two official camps in southeast Bangladesh. Efforts to find a permanent solution to this problem, for example through local integration, have not been accepted by the Government of Bangladesh, which favours repatriation to Burma/Myanmar as the preferred option. The European Commission continues to fund a major UNHCR programme to deliver relief to the camps.
   

• The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region is a distinct socio- geographical area in south-eastern Bangladesh, (comprised of Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachari districts) that suffered prolonged armed conflict until the 1997 Peace Accord. The rights of the indigenous population of CHT, including those relating to land ownership and elections to the Hill District Councils, have not been fully recognised.

Good Governance

• One of the greatest challenges remains to address the structural poverty of the country – the main factors of which are an unequal distribution of productive assets, inequitable distribution of income, massive under-employment and low levels of human resource development. To these must be added an unbalanced social system, a low level of law and order, endemic corruption and a lack of good governance.
   

• Effective poverty alleviation is impossible without good governance. It is therefore essential to enhance capacity to establish good governance practices, greater accountability and transparency as well as building efficient, well managed and responsive institutions.
   

• The EC is concentrating on a Human-Rights-based approach to improving human development indicators, with in-built good governance and institution building elements. The EC is committed to mainstreaming good governance and institution building in all its development and economic cooperation with Bangladesh.

Social Structure

• Bangladesh has made major progress in improving the standard of living of its people over the past two decades. It has successfully reduced the fertility rate from 7 to 3.13 births per woman; infant mortality rates have fallen to 54 per thousand live births and life expectancy is now 62.80 years.
   

• The population growth rate fell from over 3% in the 1970s to 2.09% in 2005. Primary education enrolments have doubled in less than 20 years and the adult illiteracy rate has fallen to 41.10%.
   

• Bangladesh belongs to the countries in its region having made most progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), having already reached four MDGs.
   

• At the same time, development needs are still huge; 82.8 % of the population live on under $2 a day, and efforts to achieve nine MDGs by 2015 are not on track. The new EC-Bangladesh Country Strategy Paper (2007 – 2013), in alliance with Bangladesh's own Poverty Reduction Strategy paper, issued in November 2005, sets a solid strategic framework as to how these challenges can be reached.

Economic Structure

• Bangladesh remains a largely agrarian country. The total cultivable area is around 24 million acres and there are a little more than 14.5 million cultivators. Major agricultural products are rice, jute, wheat, potato, pulses, sugarcane, tea, tobacco etc. Tea, leather and frozen shrimp are also major foreign exchange earners. There has also been a rapid growth in manufacturing industries, which offer a wide range of exportable goods such as leather goods and ready-made garments.
   

• At the beginning of the 1990s, significant strides were taken towards pro-market reform.
   

• In the second half of the 1990s annual economic growth level was maintained at an average of 5.1% (below the originally targeted 7%), and inflation at a single-digit rate. Per capita income levels still remain distressingly low at around US$1 per day. Despite significant achievements in the '90s in macro-economic stability, a major problem remains the narrow tax base and poor tax collection.
   

• Agriculture, to a large degree based on subsistence farming, is still (FY 2005) the most important sector with a 21.91% share in the GDP and around 63% of the total labour force.
   

• The public banking sector remains a handicap to sound economic development. Although the share of non-performing loans (NPLs) to total lending has been declining in the recent years, the state-owned banks are still burdened with NPLs. From September 2005, the gross share of NPLs in total lending stood at 34.52% for state-owned specialised banks and 24.47% for state-owned commercial banks.
   

• The composition of the export basket is a further significant problem. Almost 85% of Bangladesh’s world exports are ready-made garments. The heavy dependence on this sector brings about a considerable vulnerability of the country’s economy to world economic developments. The sector also faces significant challenges in improving working conditions for its workers in line with growing demands from the market for manufacturers to fulfil “social compliance” requirements. Terrible incidents, such as factory fires, and regular protests against low wages and poor conditions, have created instability in the industry in recent years.

TOP

COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER