By TON Bangladesh

Bangladesh is the third-largest Muslim-majority country and the eighth-most populous in the world, strategically located at the crossroads between South and Southeast Asia. The country is rightly gathering the cumulative attention of the world’s powers as an important regional country in the indo-pacific. Bangladesh can play a unique role in South Asia, as the world faces the next generation of military, political, and economic competition between the US and China.

Bangladesh continues to carefully balance its relations, especially among India, China, Russia, and the United States and is helping the regional pace to promote a free, open, and rules-based international system. With historic levels of economic growth for more than the past decade, Bangladesh has met the eligibility criteria for graduation from Least Developed Country (LDC) status. Despite the dampening effect of the 2020 global pandemic remains on track to do so. This achievement underlines Bangladesh’s extraordinary development success and its efficacy since its independence in 1971. At the same time, Bangladesh continues to host one of the world’s large refugee populations, more than one million Rohingya from Myanmar. 

Bangladesh plays a growing and significant role in supporting international peace and security, particularly as one of the largest troop contributors to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations.  Traditionally Bangladesh is a reasonable and peaceful country. However, Bangladesh needs to improve law enforcement’s investigation-led operations and judicial system capacity to properly prosecute terrorism cases in a bid to secure its security, including within its territorial waters, and also to play its due role in the Indo-Pacific area.

However, the incumbent government must improve its democratic image. As the past national elections alleged to be marred by irregularities, violence, and intimidation consolidated the power of the incumbent Prime Minister and her ruling party, the Awami League. This allowed the government to adopt legislation and policies diminishing space for political opposition, undermining judicial independence, and threatening the freedom of the media and NGOs. Subsequent local elections have only further evidenced these undemocratic trends and concentrated authority.

Bangladesh's government needs to promote grassroots community activities to revitalize Bangladesh’s democratic culture and also to ensure respect for all human rights and civil liberties. Building progress to counter trafficking in persons and enable access to justice to increase the public’s confidence is a need of the hour in Bangladesh. Bangladesh's government should also pursue robust engagement to address the most striking human rights abuses including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and restrictions on core civil liberties.

Bangladesh’s ability to feed, educate, and protect itself from illness and natural disasters is also vital to its internal political stability, development, and future success. Bangladesh has made enormous progress over the past three decades in the health sector, but still it needs further efforts to improve health and education services which are essential for economic productivity.

Major challenges also remain to reduce unacceptably high maternal and child mortality, improve family planning, and increase access to health services. Despite gains in access to education, educational quality in Bangladesh remains sub-standard and vocational opportunities are limited. Bangladesh is one of the highest-risk countries in the world for natural disasters. Nearly all of Bangladesh is a delta to the highest mountain ranges in the world and only a few meters above sea level. As such, the development of the country depends upon its ability to adapt to changing weather patterns and effectively manage its natural resources.

Bangladesh also needs to increase its capacity to withstand natural disasters and to improve the management of natural resources, and sustainably develop the energy needed to fuel its economy. Modern technical assistance can ensure Bangladesh’s readiness to respond to cyclones, floods, and earthquakes.

Currently, Bangladesh is facing the refugee burden and devising durable solutions to this crisis, including an eventual voluntary and sustainable return of the refugees to Myanmar. For humanitarian sake, Bangladesh continues to host most of the nearly 700,000 ethnic Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar. This presents security, economic, and political challenges for Bangladesh as it continues its upward development amid struggling for maintaining domestic security and economic stability.

Bangladesh is a crucial driver of regional and global economic development as the nexus of the major trade route of the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor.  In this regard, Bangladesh is endeavoring through IMF help to sustain its fragile economy. For this, Bangladesh should improve its labor rights and workplace safety as well as to address serious infrastructure deficiencies, pervasive corruption, and an absence of diversity in its economy. All these reforms are necessary for a peaceful, secure, prosperous, healthy, and democratic Bangladesh.