Bangladesh seems to have improved some of its aggregate income and governance metrices. Per capita income seems to have improved over fiscal year 2007-2008. Nevertheless, hit by the global recession aggregate GDP growth decreased by 0.3%.
As The Daily Star reported recently, a
“World Bank (WB) report says poverty may increase by 0.3 percentage point due to the fall in GDP growth. “
However, “according to [a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics] estimate, agricultural growth this FY is 4.81 per cent, which was 2.93 percent last year.”
“A high official of Bangladesh Bank(BB) said farm sector growth greatly contributed to the increase of income. Increased growth in many sections of the service sector also added to this. Besides, remittance inflow is still on the rise, and it is a major cause of the income hike.”
Bangladesh is also thought to be less corrupt now then anytime over the last 10 years. It is now ranked 13th from the bottom, by Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 3 steps up from its standing last year.
According to the authors of the 2009 CPI “The progress of Bangladesh indicates a positive assessment of the fact that many of those reforms made during the last caretaker government were carried forward, or so promised, by the newly elected government to their pledge to fight corruption,”
Finally, The United States Comission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has dropped Bangladesh from its list of countries that are deemed to violate the rights of minorities to practice their chosen religion.
As the Daily Star reports,
“The USCIRF in its 2009 annual report released on May 1 observed that the Awami League is considered more favourably disposed towards minority rights protection, based in part on the fact that the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord and the Vested Property Return Act, both measures meant to safeguard minority rights, were taken under a previous Awami League administration.”
[The authors of the report suggest] “the 2008 elections allowed minorities to exercise their voting rights and the country proceeded without the anti-minority violence, which was seen after the national elections in 2001.”
[The authors of the report claimed] “at that time the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government failed to investigate or prosecute acts of severe violence, including killings, rape, land seizures, arson, and extortion committed against religious minorities, particularly Hindus, who were perceived to be allied to the then-opposition Awami League.”
As discussed above, all these figures are broadly consistent with the moves toward greater oversight by the Awami League government. Indeed, the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh said as much during at address to the Asia Society. This is a very positive improvement in Bangladesh’s international standing and much more needs to be done. For instance, in spite of Bangladesh’s new standing on minority rights, Bangladesh still has outstanding issues with religious freedom, partly because of the rising tide of extremism.
