Introduction

The issue of governance has gained importance over the last ten years and become a key component of policies for economic development. Good governance acts as a positive force to influence economic growth. In fact, a growing amount of available evidence (mainly in World Bank documents) suggests that lack of quality governance hinders growth and investment, and aggravates poverty and inequality. In fact, governance problems foil every effort to improve infrastructure, attract investment, and raise educational standards (Harford, 2006). Governance matters significantly for a country’s aid effectiveness, and is now at heart of the new World Bank assistance strategy for Bangladesh.

Better governance will lead a country to achieve greater competitiveness. Competitiveness indicates the ability of a nation to maintain high rates of economic growth and productivity with sustained employment. More competitive economies tend to be able to achieve higher levels of income for their citizens (World Economic Forum, 2005-2006). Governance and competitiveness may be related, but they are distinct notions. In fact, competitiveness incorporates some governance variables.

In a population of 120 million in Bangladesh, some 63 million are estimated to live below the poverty line in 2000. The burden of poverty is heavy. The number of poor virtually remains unchanged from ten years earlier due to population growth. The inequality in the distribution of per capita expenditures, as measured by a Gini coefficient increased from 0.259 in 1991/92 to 0.306 in 2000. The inequality has risen in both the urban and rural sectors. Adult literacy rate is very low (45.3 percent in 2001) and more than half of rural population has no access to electricity and health.

Nevertheless, Bangladesh has made notable progress in the 1990s on the average. Bangladesh’s growth in the 1990s has been respectable, at an average rate close to five and half percent per annum although it declined marginally over the period from 1997/98-2000/01 to 2000/01-2003/04 (Table 1 [ PDF 173.7KB | 25 pages ]). In the industrial sector, the most significant development of the past decades has been the growth of the garments industry. Woven garments, knitwear and specialized textiles together account for about 77.5 percent of exports in 2003-04. The devastating floods of 1998 and 2004 affected both agriculture and industry. The growth process has displayed a degree of stability with positive implications for poverty reductions. The low volatility of GDP growth in Bangladesh was favorable to achieve progress in other social dimensions. The incidence of income poverty has fallen considerably from 59 percent in 1991/92 to 50 percent in 2000, by 0.9 percent per year. There is notable progress in social development indicators. The under five mortality rate per 1000 live births declined from 151 in 1990/91 to 110 in 2000, and the infant mortality rate per 1000 live births from 92 in 1990/91 to 61 in 2000 (WB 2003).

There has been concern with regard to governance problems in Bangladesh. Misgovernance, lack of transparency, deterioration of law and order, corruption, abuse of government power, political instability and lack of access for public redress for human rights violations are the paramount features of the governance environment in Bangladesh (TIB, TIS 2003). So the challenge facing Bangladesh is the weak and deteriorating state of governance (see Section 4). Weak governance poses a major challenge not only to further gains in development but also to sustain economic growth achieved so far. The findings of a recent firm-level survey of common sectors in Bangladesh, People’s Republic of China (PRC), Ethiopia and Pakistan indicate that if the investment climate in Bangladesh were to match PRC’s then, on average, TFP in Bangladesh would be 110 percent higher, return to capital 80 percent higher and output growth 3.7 percentage points higher (World Bank 2003). There are certain improvements necessary in some areas of political governance such as peaceful transition to democracy and formation of a non-party caretaker government for impartial handling of national elections.

In view of the ensuing outcome for exclusion of textiles and garments from preferential market access opportunities, behind-the-border barriers to trade, such as weakness in governance and infrastructure, are of more importance than tariff concessions to enhance export competitiveness and trade promotion. All the factors responsible for improving national governance are equally applicable to the increase in export competitiveness.

The problem of governance is now the overriding aspect of the country to sustain both economic growth and social development. It is therefore necessary to emphasize various dimensions of governance and competitiveness to make a serious dent in poverty and support growth in the country. At the outset, it should be recognized that the theory of governance research that imposes a causal ordering or a priori structure on the logic that links context, governance, and consequences or outcomes is extraordinarily complex.

This paper aims to examine the current situation of governance of Bangladesh in an international context and analyze the different governance dimensions in economic development. The paper will also try to highlight some mis-governance issues in some sectors of the economy.

Overall, the evidence presented in the paper indicates that different governance dimensions such as political governance, institutional dimension and technology dimension are significantly and positively related to the increase in per capita income, and the quality of governance in Bangladesh has remained at a low level as indicated by a cross-country comparison among South Asia and East Asian countries.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 is introductory providing importance and objectives of the study. Section 2 presents a literature review to understand the concepts of governance and competitiveness along with sources of data. Methodology for composition of governance dimensions will be presented in section 3. Section 4 will analyze governance dimensions of Bangladesh in an international context. Some misgovernance issues will be highlighted in this section. In section 5, econometric estimation will be made to relate governance with growth. Section 6 discusses the outlook for meeting governance challenges in Bangladesh. Concluding remarks will be presented in the last section 7.

Download this Discussion Paper [ PDF 346.3KB| 57 pages ].

Comment(s)

There are [0] comment(s) for this entry. Post a comment.