Lecture 12 - Bangladesh as an Aid Lab

What is Development?

• Development: post-WWII project of intervention in the Third World on the behalf of the West

  • Gillian Hart

• development: development of capitalism as a set of geographically uneven, contradictory processes

‘Development’ in Bangladesh post-Partition

• a secondary colonisation for East Pakistan

• lack of centralised Development

  • roots of ‘Experimental Exuberance’

• Comilla model of rural development

  • local empowerment

• Matlab surveillance site

• religious charities, philanthropy, moral obligation

Independence 1971

• 9-month war, hundreds of thousands of deaths

• site of Cold War power struggles

• socialism one of the fundamental pillars of the constitution

• Bangladesh termed a ‘basket case’

  • emerging from war, genocide, politics, environmental disaster

• first Prime Minister overthrown by a coup

• second Prime Minister killed, followed by military dictatorship

• population explosion -> Malthusian time bomb

The Bangladeshi Woman

• Mohanty 1988 -> ‘3rd World Woman’

• untapped wellspring of national Development

Aid Lab - Experimental Exuberance (6)

• family planning -> infrastructure, contraception, abortion

  • Murphy, 2017

• microfinance -> rural women, destabilised patron-client relations

  • Karim, 2011

• exporter of Development -> BRAC, ORS

• family planning ‘success’ in 1990s -> ethically dubious

• paradoxical ascent out of baskets -> very successful in MDGs

• STILL corruption, weak political institutions but large changes in socioeconomic areas

  • Development outcomes not as expected, e.g. girls education impact on marriage age

Student Protests 2024

• against government job quotas -> only stable long-term employment

• developed into general anti-corruption protests

• Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled

• Muhammad Yunus put into power, eventually people were disillusioned by him

• development stalled post-Covid, drawing attention to political flaws

New questions: who is development for?

• women and development 2.0?

• islamic groups begin to gain influence -> Jama’at Islami

• February 12th 2026 election

  • Jama’at wanted women to stay home, retreat from workforce

  • BNP opposition, won with 209 seats

• new government, meted excitement

Conclusions

• despite ‘Aid Lab’, Bangladesh is not just an importer of Development

• social and economic development has been to some extent paradoxical

• recent events show development is unsettled in definition