General background

Spread out across 144,000 square kilometers, Bangladesh is a relatively small country – comparable to Greece – but its population numbers 150 million people, making it the most densely populated country in the world. Facing the Bay of Bengal to the south, it is almost surrounded by India in other geographical directions, with just a short border in the south-east with Myanmar. The population is primarily made up of Bengalis but there are pockets of indigenous people and other minorities. Islam is the main religion, followed by Hinduism and small numbers of followers of Buddhism, Christianity, and other faiths.

Bangladesh is a deltaic region. Much of the country's land area has been built up from alluvial deposits brought down by the major rivers. The land is mostly flat except for a range of hills in the south-east. It is mainly characterised by wooded marsh lands and jungles with forests regions. Bangladesh has a tropical climate which can be divided into three seasons: a mild winter (October-February); a hot and dry summer (March-May), and a humid monsoon (June-September). During the monsoon season, 20% of the country is regularly flooded and in certain years of excessive flooding up to 60% of the land can be under water.

Political context

The country’s official name is the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. It has a Parliamentary form of government. The President is the head of state and the government is headed by the Prime Minister. After Bangladesh (Land of Bengal) became independent of Pakistan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, became the country’s first Prime Minister. Rahman was assassinated in 1975, after which the country saw sixteen years of military-backed regimes. The parliamentary elections which led to a centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, Prime Minister: Mrs Khaleda Zia) government being installed in 1991 marked the start of a new era in building democratic institutions in Bangladesh. Elections held in June 1996 under a caretaker government resulted in the victory of Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the first Prime Minister. The BNP returned to power in the 2001 elections with Khaleda Zia’s second cabinet, which included two ministers from coalition partner Jamaat-i-Islami.

The parliamentary elections scheduled for 22 January 2007 were cancelled on 11 January following the decision of the Awami League and its Grand Alliance partners to boycott the process, over concerns that the caretaker government of President Iajuddin Ahmed was biased toward BNP. On ‘1/11’, the same day that EU and UN election observers announced their withdrawal, the President, under pressure from the military, declared a state of emergency and stepped down from the position of Chief Adviser of the caretaker government, which he had taken on in an unprecedented and controversial move months earlier. As the Awami League alliance had vowed to resist the election at any cost if it went ahead under the circumstances, the cancellation of the elections most probably saved the country from significant violence breaking out between the parties and security forces.

A new caretaker government was appointed with the former World Bank official and head of Bangladesh’s central bank, Dr Fahkruddin Ahmed, at its helm. In April 2007, it announced that it was aiming to hold elections before the end of 2008. The time before elections would be used for strengthening the democratic framework of the country through institutional and electoral reform, and through taking tough measures against corruption. To this end, it appointed fresh leadership to two key institutions: the Election Commission and the Anti-corruption Commission. The Election Commission has developed new electoral legislation in dialogue with the political parties that provides, among other things, for more transparency and internal democracy in the political parties. It also undertook the task of creating a new digital voter list with photos.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has sought to hold to account corruption suspects in the civil service, business, and politics. Under its aegis, a large number of politicians, including former ministers and MPs, have been arrested and prosecuted. Just over one hundred people have been convicted under the emergency rules that ostensibly preclude bail, and also bar convicts from taking part in any election until and unless they successfully appeal to a higher court. However, in exercising its constitutional jurisdiction, the Supreme Court has overruled the emergency rules and accorded bail to many of the detainees. Despite protests from political parties, the Election Commission has affirmed that it will not accept the nomination of any candidate who has been convicted under the emergency rules.

The government has also attempted to bring about a leadership change in the political parties. Following the detention and prosecution of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, respectively the leaders of Awami League and BNP, both parties experienced tensions between “loyalist” and “reformist” factions. Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda have not been convicted on any of the charges leveled against them, and are expected to contend in the election.

As the country moves toward elections on 18 December 2008, key questions for the future include the sustainability of the reforms made over the past two years. The incoming parliament will have to ratify the legislation of the caretaker government if it is not to become null and void. A crucial issue is also whether the political climate between Government and Opposition will be more constructive than in the past, putting the country in a better position to address the many challenges that it faces.

Human rights

Bangladesh has ratified all the main international human rights treaties, though the country has entered reservations to several such treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Convention against Torture. Despite this encouraging legal framework, there remain serious problems. The main human rights concerns in Bangladesh include torture, extrajudicial killings, and deficiencies of the judicial system in terms of its lack of independence, insufficient capacity, and the difficult access to justice for the poor. The failure to investigate cases of abuse by police and other agencies thoroughly and to bring perpetrators of torture and extrajudicial killings visibly to justice has contributed to a climate of impunity. Another serious concern is overcrowding in prisons: the official capacity of the country’s jails is 27,000 places but the actual prison population is around 85,000. The death penalty is practised in Bangladesh, although there are far fewer executions than there are death sentences – there were six executions last year.

The caretaker government has created a Human Rights Commission, which has yet to become operational.

Social situation

Bangladesh has made major progress in improving the standard of living of its people over the past two decades, as evidenced by falling infant mortality rates and increasing life expectancy at birth, now at over 63 years. Primary education enrolments have doubled in less than 20 years. The adult literacy rate has increased significantly and is now over 47%.

There have been considerable efforts in supplying safe drinking water to the population. In 2000, 97% of the population had access to safe drinking water. However, Bangladesh has been struck by a widespread arsenic contamination of drinking water, the effects of which are long-ranging. Progress is still very much required as the UNDP Human Development Index places Bangladesh in 140th position out of 177 countries.

One of the greatest challenges remains to address the structural poverty of the country, the main factors of which are disparities in incomes and assets, massive under-employment and low levels of human resource development. To these must be added an social system with inherent inequalites, a low level of law and order, endemic corruption and a lack of good governance. Good governance is of crucial importance for effective poverty alleviation. Enhanced capacity to establish good governance practices, greater accountability and transparency as well as building efficient, well-managed and responsive institutions are essential elements for effectively combating poverty.

Economic structure

Bangladesh is an agricultural country. The total cultivable area is around 24 million acres and there are a over 14.5 million cultivators. Major agricultural products are rice, jute, wheat, potato, pulses, sugarcane, tea, tobacco etc. Tea, leather and frozen shrimp are also major foreign exchange earners. There has also been a rapid growth in manufacturing industries, which offer a wide range of exportable goods such as leather goods and ready-made garments.

In the beginning of the 1990s, significant strides were taken towards pro-market reform. In the second half of the 1990s annual economic growth level was maintained at an average of 5.1% (below the originally targeted 7%), and inflation at a single-digit rate. Per capita income levels still remain distressingly low at around US $1 per day. Despite significant achievements in the 90s in macro-economic stability, a major problem remains the narrow tax base and poor tax collection.