Foreign Policy Blogs

The Cycling InfoLadies of Bangladesh Bring Information to Far Flung Villages

One of the principal reasons that Bangladesh’s economic development has been so slow in coming and so meager upon arrival is that information hasn’t reached the poorer, farther flung, places in Bangladesh. Villages that do not have easy transport access (and therefore do not have information, publicly or privately bundled) do not enjoy their fair share of infrastructure allocation; their health outcomes and lifetime earnings quickly dwindle, relative to other better connected and supplied villagers.

Thus, the widening gap between those on the upswing in inequality indices far outpace their harder to reach neighbors, three villages down.

A group of women, through an NGO,  have  observed this trend and have taken matters into their own hands.  They are literally cycling information into hard to reach areas of Bangladesh.  Their contribution to the well-being of those villagers is nearly incalculable.

Watch the video below and marvel at their ingenuity and their import.

 

Author

Faheem Haider

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com