Bangladesh will have to wait for at least another nine years to graduate from the least-developed country status, according to the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
The think-tank said the country has good chances to be among eligible countries poised to graduate from the LDC status by 2018, if it meets the minimum criteria of two out of three indices set by the United Nations. The three indices are income, human asset index and economic vulnerability index.
For this, Bangladesh will have to attain higher per capita gross national income (GNI) growth and make further strides in reducing undernourishment, mortality among mothers and children, and increase the secondary school enrolment ratio and adult literacy.
After meeting the criteria, Bangladesh will be listed as an eligible country waiting for graduation, and its achievements and progresses will be under observation for the next six years in two phases between 2018 and 2024.
“We will be able to come out of the LDC list by then [2024] if there is no other major change,” Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of CPD, said at a press briefing at the CIRDAP auditorium yesterday. The CPD organised the event to unveil the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Least Developed Countries Report 2015.Launched globally yesterday, the latest LDC report said rural development is the key to meeting post-2015 development agendas in all the 48 LDCs.
It also stressed agricultural development and increased productivity, diversification of nonfarm activities, sequencing infrastructure investments, increased farm productivity and affordable and available finances.
“It is not possible to graduate from lower middle income to higher middle income without development of the rural economy and agriculture,” said Bhattacharya.
In response to a query, he said Bangladesh will not be able to become a higher middle income country by 2021, a vision set by the government, given the current level of growth per capita income.
The per capita income will have to grow to $4,125 from $1,100 now to become a higher-middle income country, as classified by the World Bank, he added.
“It is doubtless that increasing the per capita income by nearly four-fold in the next six years will require a big scientific discovery,” said Bhattacharya, adding that Bangladesh will have to ensure 40-50 percent economic growth a year to become a upper-middle income country by 2021.
“So, it is not realistic statistically.”
To get out of the LDC list, it is not a big issue whether Bangladesh is a low income, lower-mid income or high income country, he said.
“There are even some high-income countries among the LDCs. Income is not the only indicator of development,” said Bhattacharya, citing Equatorial Guinea, a central African nation that has a GNI per capita of $16,000.
“Bangladesh’s graduation from low income to lower income country has created a possibility, but it has not brought a solution in that sense,” he said, adding that there is an ‘income-only’ graduation rule and Bangladesh has to consider whether it would put emphasis on income or human resource development.
“It is good to put emphasis on developing human resources. It will increase labour productivity,” said Bhattacharya.
Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of CPD, said human resource development will create scope for income growth.
The CPD’s observation came at a time when Bhutan and Nepal, two landlocked countries, have met the eligibility criteria to graduate from LDCs ahead of Bangladesh.
“We have to remember that we are making strides. But our neighbours are not progressing slowly,” said Bhattacharya, adding that the government would have to prepare a strategy to take the country out of the LDC status.
“We should have strategies on how we will protect our interests in global trade and financing after graduation,” he said.
The CPD, citing the rankings of 48 LDCs based on various indicators, said Bangladesh ranks number one in agriculture land productivity.
But it lags in terms of agricultural labour productivity per worker and land labour ratio, said Towfiqul Islam Khan, research fellow of CPD. “It is not possible to ensure agricultural transformation without increasing labour productivity in the farm sector,” said Bhattacharya.
In the LDC Report 2015, UNCTAD said the productivity of agriculture in LDCs is just 1.8 percent of that in developed countries, mainly because of very low investment in research and development and technology and limited public investment in infrastructure. It also recommended undertaking large-scale infrastructure using labour-based construction methods and strengthening rural urban transport links.
Source: The Daily Star
