Bangladesh

At the Heart of the Matter: Improved Market Access to Food Supplies

Hi-Las workers weighing and sizing mangoes. Source -

At the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference held in Bali on December 2013, all WTO members reached an agreement on trade facilitation and a compromise on food security issues, a contentious topic which had previously stalled talks during the 2008 Doha Development Round. The “Bali Package,” as it came to be known, was quickly heralded as an important milestone, reaffirming the legitimacy of multilateral trade negotiations while simultaneously recognizing the significant development benefits of reducing the time and costs to trade.

Seven months after the Bali Ministerial Conference, however, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) has yet to be ratified as India is concerned that insufficient attention has been given to the issue of food subsidies and the stockpiling of grains. India maintains that agreements on the food security issue must be in concert with the TFA.

Despite the current impasse in implementing the Bali decisions, the food security concern at the heart of the matter sheds light on the importance of improving the agribusiness supply chains of developing countries to ensure maximum efficiencies. Consider the fact that in 2014, farmers will produce approximately 2.5 billion tons of food. Yet, 1.3 billion tons are lost or wasted each year between farm and fork, while 805 million people suffer from chronic hunger.

November 7, 2014: This Week in #SouthAsiaDev

Tackling the Most Critical Regional Economic Challenges

south asia integration — For the first time in history, all South Asian leaders were invited to the newly elected Indian Prime Minister’s oath-taking ceremony, May 2014. President Mahinda Rajapaksa/Flickr.

I’m on my way to the 7th South Asia Economic Summit (SAES) in New Delhi, India. The summit* brings together leading analysts, academics, policymakers, the private sector and civil society from across the region and beyond, who meet to suggest solutions to South Asia’s economic issues and learn from each other’s experiences.

This year’s SAES takes place at a very opportune time. Regional cooperation momentum has been on an upswing. The theme of the summit, “Towards South Asian Economic Union” captures the renewed optimism of moving forward on the regional agenda and generating shared prosperity. Apart from that, the SAES is held between November 7 – 8, only two weeks before the 18th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit, where heads of state from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka will meet in Kathmandu, Nepal.

No Magic Bullet for Closing the Gender Gap in Developing Countries

Students at the Vhuerdiah village in Babuganj, Barishal.
Mahfuzul Hasan Bhuiyan/World Bank

A number of incidents this year have highlighted the challenging circumstances in which girls attend school in developing countries. Nearly 300 adolescent school girls were abducted from their boarding school in northeastern Nigeria by the Boko Haram group. Frequent attacks on schools have forced many parents to withdraw girls from education.

Development practitioners and donors are more convinced than ever that increasing opportunities, skills and resources for women and girls will lead to measurable improvements across a wide range of development indicators for all people, irrespective of their gender. The running assumption is that supporting adolescent girls is one of the most effective strategies available to achieve wider developmental outcomes.

The World Bank’s report, Voice and Agency: Empowering women and girls for shared prosperity launched two weeks ago, highlighted the close relation between female education and child marriage, noting, in particular, that girls with no education were six times more likely to enter into a child marriage compared to girls with high school education in 18 of the 20 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriages. However, the case of Bangladesh shows that improvements in female education are not a sufficient condition for reducing child marriage among women: two out of every three girls marry before age 18 in spite of a big jump in secondary school enrollment and a sharp decline in fertility rate in the last twenty years.

October 31, 2014 : This Week in #SouthAsiaDev

Unlocking the Brightest Minds: Creating an Enabling Environment for Modern Teaching and Learning in Bangladesh

Faced with pressure of an increasing number of students, education quality has been a central concern for the universities and society at large in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been a shining example in increase access and quality to primary and secondary education, but similar progress has not yet been seen at the tertiary level. Educationists are concerned that higher education, in its current form, may not be able to supply sufficient numbers of highly trained and motivated individuals to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Such worries are not completely groundless. At many universities, facilities and equipment such as laboratories, libraries, equipment, journals etc. were often in short supply or outdated.

The Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) initiative under Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), is helping universities to overcome such challenges. A number of faculties have already taken advantage of the opportunity to bring about improvements in teaching, learning, and facilities.

Illicit Financial Flows: A Wake-Up Call to Action

One trillion dollars. That’s a big number. It’s hard to ignore.

One trillion dollars, according to estimates by Global Financial Integrity, is the amount lost every year by developing countries through illicit financial outflows connected to trade mispricing, bribery, theft, kick-backs, tax evasion, organized crime, and trafficking of drugs, weapons, and humans. This means that for every one US dollar developing countries receive in external assistance, ten US dollars are lost to illicit financial flows (IFFS). These estimates should be treated with caution—it is difficult to measure what is designed to remain hidden. But even if we accept that these estimates are uncertain, no one doubts that IFFs are huge.

IFFs drain hard currency reserves, heighten inflation, reduce tax collection, discourage investment, and weaken free trade. These practices stifle poverty alleviation efforts, undermine the integrity of government, and damage the foundations of society.

October 24, 2014: This Week in #SouthAsiaDev

The Post-2015 Youth Agenda: Why is it Important?

If the deluge of trend pieces tell us anything, it’s that the millennials are the most fussed over demographic in history. But behind the hype, there is real a tectonic shift. We are now witnessing the largest youth bulge in history. Over half the world’s population is now under thirty, with the majority living in developing and middle-income countries.

A youthful population can be source of creativity, innovation and growth –but only if employed and engaged in their societies. Unfortunately, for much of the world’s young people, reality is very different.

A number of hurdles prevent young people from contributing as productive, socially responsible citizens. As Emma Murphy of Durham University notes, “Poor education limits their skills, poor employment limits their transition to adulthood and political obstacles limit their voice and participation.”

The longer young people are excluded from participating in their economic and political systems, the further we are from realizing the ‘demographic dividend’.

It’s a no-brainer. A youth agenda, focusing on the issues that affect young people, must be a critical piece of any post-2015 framework. Where do we start?

Working in Urban Water? IBNET Can Help.

If you are working on an urban water project, what information do you need? You likely want to know what your project’s water utility knows. How else can you start talking to each other to have a productive discussion, using the same language and standards?