The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr. Syed Saad Andaleeb and Dr. K.F. Jalal

The response to the conference, Bangladesh in the 21st Century, on June 13-14, 2008 was truly overwhelming. A star-studded complement of academics and practitioners converged as a community at the iconic institution, Harvard University, to discuss and debate the problems and prospects facing Bangladesh. It was particularly heartening to see so many outstanding participants, in such a distant land, interested in the affairs of Bangladesh and its future, interested in engaging in intellectual dialogue to try and chart out priorities for Bangladesh into a coherent framework to help guide the country's leaders and policy makers to run the ship of state.

Conferences abound in Bangladesh and the US. This conference, however, was special given its different orientation and objective. Not only did the organizers want to spend two days discussing and debating the priorities facing the nation, they also made plans to archive this knowledge as video recordings; disseminate it to the appropriate audience in the government, policy pools, media, and knowledge centers; and publish the work of the authors as edited books for others to build upon. The organizers also offered a vision for participants to continue the discussions by forming learning communities that would remain engaged in their own areas, collectively, and provide the needed expertise to Bangladesh. It was felt that as a community, rather than individually, they could grow into a force that would be able to take on bigger challenges and make real impact.

That Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in several areas was amply recognized in the following areas: economic growth (by being grouped in the Next-11) and expectation to join the middle income countries, population control and human development, manpower and garment exports, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, and educational opportunities, especially for women. The contributions of the NGOs were also recognized as was the work of the country's peace keepers in areas of conflict where they have made significant impact.

On the other hand, Bangladesh's numerous challenges were also seen as a drag on its ability to move forward quicker: civil unrest, corruption, assassinations, incompetence, strong egos, an identity crisis, external pressures, debilitated institutions, widespread poverty and related challenges since its cataclysmic birth. Among the most deleterious is the continuing battle for the soul of Bangladesh reflected in the narrow interests of those in power, debilitating political divisions, and a growing crevasse between liberation and anti-liberation forces. The espousal of democratic governance by the country's leaders was also seen as hollow, given their patron-client mentality and strong autocratic leanings.

The need, it was felt, was to find a set of selfless and visionary leaders who primarily must be healers and peace makers. Their hallmark is patience, wisdom, integrity, humility, statecraft and a quiet confidence . A crucial task ahead for them is to build trust with the people, a fabric that has been shredded by deceit and corruption on a wide scale over the years.

Programmatically, the conference started on June 13 with a welcome address by Dr. Gowher Rizvi, Director of Ash Institute, Kennedy School of Governance at Harvard, followed by introductory remarks by Dr. Syed Saad Andaleeb, BDI President and Professor of Marketing, Pennsylvania State University, Erie USA. Dr. Rizvi's focus was on: How to hold the elections and restore democracy, how to adapt the democratic institutions for power-sharing and how to ensure that the elected representatives would guarantee social justice to their constituencies. Dr. Andaleeb commented on the need for everyone to participate in nation-building, not just political parties, each contributing their very best and playing by the rules of society. Both commented on the past and recent achievements of Bangladesh. They also emphasized the current challenges facing Bangladesh, especially at this critical juncture with the promised election in December of this year and uncertainties surrounding this upcoming election and its aftermath.

Dr. Kazi F. Jalal, Chairperson of DDBF and Faculty at Harvard University Extension School, introduced the keynote speaker for the conference, Dr. Jamilur Reza Choudhury, Vice Chancellor, BRAC University, Bangladesh. Dr. Choudhury painted a positive picture of Bangladesh, especially in the fields of transportation, telecommunication and information technology, drawing upon numerous examples from his own engagements including work done on the Jamuna Bridge. He maintained great hope for the country with the right brand of leadership and investments in human resources and technological development.

The plenary session on the first day was based on the theme paper "Bangladesh Foreign Policy in the Twenty First Century: Past, Present and Future" by Farooq Sobhan, President, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The discussants were Gowher Rizvi of Ash Institute, former Ambassador and Professor Tariq Karim and honorable ambassador of Bangladesh in Washington, D.C., Mr. Humayun Kabir. The panel discussed strategies, constraints and possibilities of Bangladesh's foreign policy, given its geo-political position. The panel emphasized improving the image of Bangladesh in the world, especially in the developed countries, to secure markets for Bangladeshi products and encouraged non-resident Bangladeshis in USA to get involved in the American politics in their respective locations. They also stressed the need to upgrade the Foreign Service by staffing it with professionals who would need to be specialists instead of being generalists. Bangladesh's need for alignment with India was especially discussed emphasizing, however, the need for a pro-Bangladesh strategy, not a pro-India or pro-Pakistan strategy. This view gained strong approval of the participants.

Mr. Masihur Rahman, former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, External Relations Division, delivered the luncheon speech of the day on "Democracy in Bangladesh: Crisis and retrieval." The idea of proportional representation based on the election results was espoused. The dinner speech on "Political Reforms: Players and Prospects" was by Dr. Rounaq Jahan, senior research scholar and adjunct faculty, Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University, New York, USA who highlighted the prevalence of "lejoor-politics" in the country and the lack of commitment of the major political parties to bring about meaningful reform into the political sphere in Bangladesh.

The conference was also divided into parallel sessions. A total of twelve sessions were held on the first day of the conference. The sessions discussed different socio-economic development issues, problems and prospects of Bangladesh, including political and development strategies, democracy, infrastructure development, labor and employment, technology innovation, capital in-flows and foreign direct investment, healthcare, environment, NGO and micro-finance, gender and education, education.

The first day concluded with a cultural program, organized by Gulshan Ara Kazi and Kazi Shahjahan Belal, that maintained a thematic concurrence with the overall conference. Poetry selections, dance choreographies, and gono shongeet, enthralled the audience for about 50 minutes.

The organizers of the conference intended to stimulate debate and discussion on the various problems and prospects facing Bangladesh. Given India's 9 percent current growth rate and China's double-digit economic growth for the last three decades, they were intent on finding ways for Bangladesh to prepare to take advantage of a similar beckoning opportunity.

The second day of the conference (June 14, 2008) continued to focus on similar issues on Bangladesh's political, social, and economic development. Beginning with a short video presentation of BDI's mission and accomplishments in the 20 years of its existence (available upon request), it highlighted the need to develop targeted industries as the Asian Tigers did to generate higher value added jobs. It also emphasized the need to rationalize the tax structure that would favor productive enterprise rather than the trader class that has facilitated the establishment of imported products to the detriment of encouraging local industries to develop.

The second day's plenary also included a presentation of "BRAC at 35," highlighting the NGO's evolution, contributions and growth overall, as well as focused insights on health, education and poverty alleviation programs. It role in eradicating poverty in countries such as Sri Lanka, as well as countries in Africa was enlightening. An interesting question raised at this session was that about when the NGOs were going to replace the government, suggesting how the NGOs have moved massively into areas where the government has failed miserably.

Mr. Mamun Rashid, managing director of Citibank discussed the problems and prospects of capital markets of Bangladesh during the luncheon presentation. The need to generate internal funds for investments was a strong theme where the SEC, the Bangladesh Bank and the Ministry of Finance could each play a significant role in helping gain the confidence of investors, especially after the debacle and crash of the 90s.

Highlights of the two days included discussions on education, health care, NGOs, financing, capital markets, foreign direct investment, environment, energy, and industry including the garment sector.

During the session on environment and energy chaired by Dr. Kazi F. Jalal, at least two prospective investment ideas on renewable energy and rural sanitation came up that deserves further consideration by both the public and private sectors in Bangladesh. On the matter of water resources and floods in Bangladesh, Dr. Sufian Khandakar opined that Bangladesh could never control floods, hence what is more important is to find ways of mitigating the effects of floods.

The session on health sector generated great interest as the opportunities and threats in the pharmaceutical sector were highlighted. The need for third-party research labs that would ensure quality of the products was emphasized by Dr. Iqbal Hussain. This was followed by Prof. Rahman's presentation urging the need for changes in managerial practices in the hospital sector given their low levels of operational efficiency. Dr. Andaleeb emphasized the lack of patients' voice in evaluating service quality in hospitals and outlined how standards of practice could incorporate patients' voice to improve services. His data showed how patients rated foreign hospitals "always" significantly higher on service quality than the public and private hospitals in Bangladesh that could be reversed by introducing "social control" of health care via public evaluation and dissemination of information along the lines of Transparency International's work.

The session on economic issues also generated a lot of questions on the readymade garment export sector and related issues. The session on FDI generated a few concrete ideas on how Bangladesh can attract greater investment from abroad.

The session on democracy and security was addressed by Mr. Matiur Rahman, editor, Prothom Alo, Professor Zillur Khan, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Wisconsin State University, Oshkosh, former ambassador and presently adjunct professor at George Washington University, Tariq Karim, and Dr. Syedur Rahman of Penn State University. Each of the presenters articulated and built upon the need for a justice-based society and where ensuring "absence of fear" was held as a major goal of democratization. The need to address Bangladesh's debilitating "war with itself" was also stressed.

On the education front, the need to balance quality vs. quantity was pointedly emphasized as was the need to allocate more resources to this sector as a percent of GDP by Dr. Manzoor Ahmed of IED, BRAC, who also articulated the need for a unified, not uniform, system of primary education to bring about more conformity between the different streams prevalent today.

Part of the conference on the last day was dedicated to several breakout sessions where participants engaged in brainstorming on various issues: Environment, NGO - health - population, Education, Industry and employment, Nation building and governance, and Macroeconomic issues and financial inflows.

The closing ceremony was addressed by His Excellency, Mr. Humayun Kabir, the Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United States and Mr Matiur Rahman, editor of Prothom Alo. Both emphasized the need for the establishment of democratic governance in Bangladesh where the people's voice must reign supreme. By so doing, the nation would be best poised to harness the forces of progress and adapt to a rapidly changing and fiercely competitive world of rapid technological progress and globalization.

Three sets of information are being prepared by BDI and DDBF as an outcome of the conference. The first set is the Harvard Recommendations that emerged from the breakout sessions. Summaries of these recommendations are planned to be made available for public consumption shortly. A more elaborate set of the same recommendations would be available as a larger document for presentation to the media, the present government, universities, think-tanks and other key organizations. There were also twenty concurrent sessions, each covering three papers in chosen areas such as education, politics, healthcare, etc. Session briefs are also being prepared as the Harvard Sessions by the session chairs for dissemination. Finally, a set of books stressing selected themes, entitled Bangladesh in the 21st Century: The Harvard Papers is planned for publication in the following months.

(Dr. Syed Saad Andaleeb is Professor of Marketing at the Sam and Irene Black School of Business, Pennsylvania State University at Erie, President of BDI, and Editor of the Journal of Bangladesh Studies. Dr. K.F. Jalal is President DDBF and faculty, Harvard University Extension School)