Bangladesh is currently celebrating the silver jubilee of its birth as a nation-state. It is time for self- reflection. To undertake the daunting task of self-examination, the book brings together analytical dimensions and ideas of some eighteen distinguished authors of Bangladesh who are well-respected in their own fields. The issues they address cut across both domestic politics and external relations.
This volume is a compendium of the papers presented at the Conference convened jointly by Wilton Park and the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS) which was held at Wilton Park, Sussex, UK, during 11-12 October 2004. The Wilton Park Conference was a follow up of the twelfth SAARC Summit held in Islamabad in January 2004, and originates from a collective endeavour to provide inputs to the thirteenth SAARC Summit scheduled to be held in Dhaka during 9-11 January 2005.
Readymade Garment (RMG) Industry occupies a dominant position in the export manufacturing sector of Bangladesh. Most of the workers employed in this industry are women, mainly to exploit the comparative advantages they provide in terms of cheap labour, low bargaining power and their docility etc. It follows that there will be substantial gender differentiated socio-economic impacts in this export oriented manufacturing sector.
The book brings a gender sensitive approach into the discourse and practice on human security in Bangladesh and Pakistan. It provides an intellectual understanding of the concept of gendered human security through a synthesis of academic discourse and scholarship, good practices and policies. It also contributes to the building of standards and norms of measuring human security. In doing so, the book ventures into developing a conceptual basis for the rationale behind the need for a separate framework for women's insecurity.
The South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS) has commissioned a Task Force drawn from across South Asia to prepare a Citizen's Social Charter for South Asia (CSCSA). This charter, which was prepared over a period of six years, involved citizen's groups from across Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This is the first volume published on the CSCSA.
This volume addresses the theme of Tanzania's persistent dependence on foreign aid. The study draws upon the problem of aid dependence in Bangladesh to identify many shared features of this experience. It is argued that the commonalities in the aid experience of Tanzania and Bangladesh originate in the nature of the aid relationship between donors and aid recipients which has compromised the efficacy of aid and the sustainability of the development process.
This study focuses on the importance of integrating the transport infrastructure of Asia as an essential element in promoting greater economic integration within and between South and East Asia. The study focuses on the transport infrastructure of Bangladesh, North East India, Myanmar, Thailand and Yunnan Province of China. It examines the gaps in the transport network as well as the importance of improved facilitation of transport movements across national borders.
This study addresses the issue of sub-regional economic cooperation between Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and India with particular emphasis on the regions of North East India. It discusses the scope and implications of bringing together the least developed eastern regions of South Asia along with their immediate neighbour, Myanmar, another least developed country within a growth zone designed to harness the collective resources of the area for the purposes of transforming a once backward area into a dynamic and prosperous region.
In recent years issues concerning bilateral trade between Bangladesh and India have received heightened interest and come under close scrutiny. Bangladesh's trade deficit with India has been increasing at an accelerated rate in recent years. The deficit grew most visibly in the 1990s when Bangladesh started to liberalise at a rapid pace with the deficit in formal trade balance rising from 200 million to about a billion within the scope of last five years.
In this book of three essays (emerging from lectures at BRAC University and Bangladesh Economic Association), Professor Nurul Islam examines the opportunities as well as risks Bangladesh faces in foreign trade, investment and labour export, first in the context of economic globalization and then in the regional context, in forging mutually beneficial economic relations with India. The book also contains an empirical analysis of Bangladesh's international image-in respect of economic performance and state of governance- with a significant bearing on her development prospects.