1. Introduction

This section on the economic and social conditions in Bangladesh at independence draws extensively from the excellent account of Nurul Islam (1974), a leading development economist and the first planning chief of Bangladesh. The data cited herein are drawn from his work unless otherwise stated. Also informative is the analysis of Robinson (1974) as well as Robinson (1973).

Micronutrient deficiency relates to inadequacy in essential vitamins and minerals. It is a pervasive problem in many developing countries.

For an authoritative account of the 1974 Bangladesh Famine, see Islam (2003). Islam attributed the cause of this famine to a multitude of factors—both domestic as well as international, both economic and noneconomic. These factors include natural disasters, speculative behavior in the face of crop failures, adverse external macroeconomic circumstances, and nonavailability of food aid during the crisis. For a complex phenomenon such as famine, a single-factor explanation can be inadequate and highly misleading. In the Bangladesh case, international political–economic factors were as important as domestic factors. In the face of shortages in 1974, Bangladesh wanted to purchase food internationally from commercial sources, but could not do so as it failed to obtain the necessary commercial credit. In the meantime, US agreements to supply food aid under the PL 480 program were also delayed, mainly because US officials were negotiating in secret whether Bangladesh should be debarred from receiving assistance as it had sold jute to Cuba, an embargoed country, earlier in the year. By the time American food arrived in Bangladesh in December 1974, the autumn famine was over (Rothschild 1976).

On this point, Robinson (1973, 46) mused: “‘Is Bangladesh viable?’ To that question, an economist has no answer. What is the alternative to viability? Death? Has any country ever died? It can be poor. It can be static. However, can a state not be viable?”

Unless otherwise indicated, the data cited in this section are drawn from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank.

The World Bank divides economies into four income groupings: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high. Income is measured by gross national income (GNI) per capita, in US dollars, converted from local currency using the World Bank Atlas method. Estimates of GNI are obtained from economists in World Bank country units; and the size of the population is estimated by World Bank demographers from a variety of sources, including the UN’s biennial publication World Population Prospects (World Bank n.d.).

The UN classifies a country as an LDC based on three criteria: per capita gross national income (GNI), human assets, and economic vulnerability to external shocks. The latter two are measured by two indices: the human assets index and the economic vulnerability index. Income criterion is based on a three-year average estimate of GNI per capita. Human Assets Index is based on indicators of nutrition, health, and education. The economic vulnerability index is based on a whole host of different indicators such as population size; remoteness; merchandise export concentration; share of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; share of the population in low-elevated coastal zones; instability of exports of goods and services; victims of natural disasters; and instability of agricultural production. To become eligible for graduation, a country must reach threshold levels for graduation for at least two of the aforementioned three criteria, or its GNI per capita must exceed at least twice the threshold level and the likelihood that the level of GNI per capita is sustainable must be deemed high (UN-OHRLLS 2018).