4. Bangladesh Delta Plan: Anatomy of a Long-Term Development Strategy

The Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 is formulated with a target of achieving a safer, secured, resilient and prosperous country by the end of the twenty-first century. The primary goals of the delta plan are to attain food and water security in the long run in this delta along with environmental sustainability and continuous economic growth. The country has been considered as one of the next 11 emerging economies of the world. However, the country is also one of the most climatic vulnerable countries across the globe. Ensuring food security for all remains a key policy challenge for Bangladesh for over a long period. The country also set 2030 as the year to eradicate extreme poverty and to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. In this perspective, the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 is unique in its nature that sets goals and identifies strategies for a period up to the year 2100. However, the delta plan has missed certain issues that are critical for the sustainable development of the delta. This paper, therefore, offers recommendations for consideration as there are scopes to explore these issues being the delta plan is adaptive in nature. Our recommendation ranges from education and research; from exploring the potential of the blue economy to trans-boundary cooperation for water and energy security; from ensuring food security to food-quality security, water and air quality security and public health; from ensuring credibility of the government institutions to providing a national database with comprehensive household information suitable to enable effective policy intervention during shocks, disasters and pandemic like Covid-19 situation.