The editorial team of this newspaper has tasked me to give my thoughts on future of Bangladesh, perhaps its economy, people, politics, climate — in other words where the country will be in the next 100 years. This is a tall task. I don’t have a crystal ball that can allow me to see even 25 years from now, let alone a hundred years. I am not a soothsayer either with superpowers who can prognosticate on the future about a hundred years from now. But we can read the signs perhaps and speculate on the future.
To understand the quandary of predicting the future you have to look at the past and realize how things that were once considered immutable changed beyond recognition in the last one hundred years. Take the case of Indian subcontinent itself. A hundred years ago, in 1924, the subcontinent was a unitary geographic entity under foreign rule. It was unthinkable that subcontinent would break up in less than three decades in two separate countries, India and Pakistan, and then breakup further splitting one of the two countries, Pakistan. Millions of people would be displaced, and many would die in the first partition, mainly because of communal strife. The third breakup was more brutal because the ruling powers of Pakistan would not let go the eastern part without a criminal assault and murder of hundreds of thousands more. No one in 1924 had imagined that a country which took pride in the diversity of its religion and ethnicity, coexisted with plurality of religion in harmony, would fight with their own neighbors to death to create countries based on religion. No one could see through their crystal ball, if any, that the land borders that would be artificially created by a foreign ruler would create permanent hostility between countries and lead them to create armies and lethal arsenals to threaten each other. No one also imagined that time a country would be once established based on Bengali nationhood, language, and culture, separate from India and Pakistan. Therefore, to write about the next hundred years of this relatively nascent country is really like contemplating the imponderables.
Ignoring the past century, I will assume Bangladesh will continue to survive as a sovereign nation within its current international borders with no catastrophic disasters that could destroy the country. Let us also assume that Bangladesh will continue as a democratic nation with its current economic growth following the model of past three decades. But instead of jumping to one hundred years from now, let us see what trends we can witness over the next few decades.
First, on the economy. According to an analysis from PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper), one of the four largest accounting and management consulting firms in the world, Bangladesh will rank 23rd among the top economies of the world by 2050, rising above Malaysia, Thailand and even Australia. In fact, according to this analysis, Bangladesh, along with India and Vietnam, will be the three fastest growing economies of the world in next three decades. Their economies will be driven by changing demographics (a much younger population joining the workforce), higher education level, capital investments, and technological advancement.
Next, let me focus on population growth. With a current population growth rate of about 1.5%, Bangladesh population is estimated to be between 190-200 million by 2050, leveling to replacement level beyond that date. In other words, we can see a leveling of population in the next decades beyond 2050. While this can be a positive for a land starved country, it can be a big drawback on developing further skilled human resources to sustain and develop our economy. If technology is going to be one of the major drivers of our future economic growth, human resources will have to be our mainstay going forward.
All national and international studies on Bangladesh economy point to capital investment as the most essential component of further economic growth. Bangladesh domestic capital investment, public and private, is around 31% of GDP currently. Private sector investment has been mostly in the garments sector. Unfortunately, foreign direct investment has been less than 1% of GDP in last couple of years, behind India and Sri Lanka. If capital investment has to be a driver of economy in Bangladesh in coming years, this is an area that will need much of government effort. According to US State Department report on investment climate in Bangladesh has made gradual progress over past decade in reducing some constraints on investment such as reliable electricity, but inadequate infrastructure, limited financing instruments, bureaucratic delays, and corruption continue to hinder foreign investment. Addressing these constraints needs to be a primary concern for the government for the next few decades.
The greatest challenge for the coming decades for Bangladesh is the most imponderable one, climate change. The Johns Hopkins University Policy Research Institute states that World Risk Index 2023 ranks Bangladesh ninth worldwide for climate disaster risk. By 2050, Bangladesh will lose 17% of its territory due to rising sea levels, resulting in the loss of 30% of the country’s agricultural land. The rise of sea levels in coastal areas is prompting people to migrate into cities. Climate migrants are subjected to poor living conditions, contributing to higher levels of poor health, food insecurity, and national poverty. Cities in Bangladesh are ill-prepared to receive climate migrants, contributing to an international migration crisis and impacting neighboring countries.
So, how shall we approach the next few decades? With high hopes that our success will outpace what we have achieved in the last five decades and we will be among the developed nations of the world, or we might even not exist on the map of the world? We will take it that the second possibility is a non sequitur given the prognosis given by the most credible international experts. But is the path for continuous development at a faster pace also a given? Not with the constraints to further economic development, state of governance particularly the malaise of pervasive, corruption, and poor state of higher education in the country.
Forecast of a place in the sun among the top twenty-five countries in the world is based on many premises. These are making the country a hospitable place for capital investment, domestic and foreign, investment in human resources, improving our institutions, educational, political, and government, and ending pervasive corruption that has been corroding our country. Coping with climate change will be an easier task when we tackle the above challenges.
Domestic capital investment in the public sector will need financing from increased tax revenue and plugging of holes in the tax system. Investment in the private sector will have to come with increased export earnings and incentives. Foreign investment will require major efforts in further improvement of our infrastructure, both physical and institutional, such as policy reforms in foreign investment, eliminating bureaucratic delays, and ending corruption with a firm political resolve. As all future development will depend much on technological progress, the goal of our human capital development will be equipping our next generation with a dynamic education system focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The focus of institutional development will be reforming our educational institutions with state-of-the-art curriculum, restacking them with properly trained educationists. Our government institutions such as police and bureaucracy, and judiciary have to be reformed with people of integrity, adequate skills, and above all have to be freed from political interference. Most important of all, our politics have to be guided by a unitary principle of good governance which will be committed to setting up a corruption free country. That will be a true basis to start our road to the future.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
