Dr Niaz Asadullah, Prof of Development Economics, University of Malaya and the Global Labor Organization (GLO) Lead of South Asia delivered a public lecture titled ‘Bangladesh at 51: Achievements, Contradictions, and Challenges’, at North South University (NSU) on Wednesday, a press release said.
The event was jointly organized by the Department of Economics, School of Business & Economics (SBE), NSU, and GLO, an international network and virtual platform on labor. NSU Young Economists’ Forum (YEF), a student club of NSU affiliated with the Department of Economics, was the youth engagement partner of the event.
He explained that Bangladesh’s social achievements in female schooling, fertility reduction, immunization coverage, contraception usage, and weakening of son preference in fertility are truly exceptional when compared with Pakistan and India. These cases of positive deviance point to a ‘development miracle’ i.e. systematic social progress achieved before Bangladesh’s recent surge in GDP growth. Professor Niaz however cautioned that the public spending on education and health as ratios of GDP in Bangladesh are among the lowest in the world. If Bangladesh is to emulate the East Asian model of economic growth of South Korea and Singapore, then drastic increase in education and health spending is necessary – mega infrastructure projects must be complemented with human capital development for sustainable development
