Nawshad Ahmed

The rapid increase in global food prices in recent months have put many countries including Bangladesh in a crisis.

The social protection allocation in the annual budget has consistently increased over the last 14 years. In FY 2008-09, a total of Tk 13,845 crore was allocated for social protection programmes.

The Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), last conducted in 2016, is a comprehensive national survey in Bangladesh.

Recently, while visiting a small town in the south called Raozan, I was impressed to see how there were no empty plastic bottles or used polythene lying around.

Despite the higher authorities’ public expression of dissatisfaction with frequent revisions of government projects, the practice of taking projects to ECNEC meetings to be granted deadline extensions, design changes, expansion of scope and budget enhancements has continued unabated.

A better understanding about the increasing economic importance of urban centres in national development is needed to shift the policy rhetoric towards increased urban investment.

I was shocked to know recently that my housemaid, who is a widow, had to pay for Tk 2 lakh worth of furniture and clothing for her daughter’s

Chattogram, the country’s second largest city and home to its main sea port, with an estimated population of 52 lakh people, has been suffering from serious water-logging and drainage issues for a long time.

Town planning is both a science and an art of designing and developing urban areas.

A megaproject is a large-scale, costly and complex venture, and its implementation usually takes several years.

The Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) area has seen a fast population growth over the last two decades.

The implementation of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) in Bangladesh  has been severely affected by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the last 17 months.

Income growth leads to increased urbanisation, which due to higher concentration of the population in smaller geographical areas can cause higher rates of infectious diseases.

Whether economic growth has an inherent mechanism to reduce both poverty and inequality has been extensively studied in developed and developing countries.

It is widely acknowled-ged that Bangladesh has been successful in making impressive gains in poverty reduction in the past years. Nevertheless, at the end of 2019, there were still about 16.5 million people categorised as extreme poor.

Dhaka has been going through an unprecedented level of urban growth during the last five decades. As the capital of newly independent Bangladesh in 1971, Dhaka had a population of only 1.5 million, whereas it currently has an estimated population of 21.7 million.

Elections to the paurashava (municipality) councils are ongoing since December 2020 in phases, and are expected to be concluded by April 2021.

It is one thing to explore the connection between religion and development, and another to take it for granted and find out ways in which religion can contribute to economic development, deal with social disorders and promote overall welfare of the people.

When a reasonably large factory is closed down, either by the government or by a private entrepreneur, the immediate consequence of it that comes to mind is the loss of jobs.

I visited more than a dozen small and medium sized towns in Bangladesh during the last two months to get a good understanding about our urbanisation trends.