We are already witnessing the horrific consequences of decades and decades of encroachment upon wetlands, destruction of rivers and filling up of low-lying areas in the capital. Photo: Amran Hossain

By Nahela Nowshin
Oct 3 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

A recent World Bank report—an environmental analysis of Bangladesh—should erase any remaining doubts about the critical level that environmental pollution has reached in the country.

The report titled “Enhancing Opportunities for Clean and Resilient Growth in Urban Bangladesh” should be an eye-opener for policymakers who seem to have had their eyes set on boosting economic growth alone without paying attention to the concomitant environmental costs. The data shows that deaths caused by pollution in 2015 in Bangladesh stand at 28 percent—the highest in South Asia. In the same year, there were around 234,000 deaths due to environmental pollution and related health risks, including 80,000 in urban areas. This is more than ten times the number of deaths resulting from road accidents in 2015.

That the environmental situation has come to this is hardly surprising. The filthy outside air that the average Dhaka dweller has become so accustomed to breathing is just one of the daily manifestations of the city’s worsening environmental conditions. This is a major reason behind Dhaka slipping down in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability index. It went from being the fourth least liveable city in 2017 to being the second worst this year—now ranked only one notch above war-torn Damascus.

Despite there being more than 25 environment-related laws, policies and guidelines, pollution in the country has increased dramatically in the last few decades. While the list of factors responsible for the exponential rise in pollution is a long one, the underlying problems are a culture of non-implementation of existing laws and a general mindset of total disregard for the environment. In the absence of implementation of relevant laws, the effects of the dual threat of urbanisation and industrialisation to the environment have been far-reaching, particularly for the capital Dhaka. For urban planners and city engineers, modern-day Dhaka serves as a microcosm of urbanisation gone haywire.

As people from all over the country throng to the capital, Dhaka seems to have reached its saturation point in terms of provision of basic infrastructure and services. And the impact on the living conditions of Dhaka as a result has been devastating. Although urbanisation and increase in income levels are thought to be accompanied by a remarkable improvement in the standard of living—and this has been the case for a sizeable population of the country—the resulting environmental impact has now reached an unbearable level that threatens to undo much of what we have achieved.

It is the lower strata of society that is bearing the brunt of the consequences of the environmental havoc being wreaked by unplanned urbanisation. For instance, in Dhaka, heavy metal-contaminated sites are mostly located in poorer neighbourhoods—making the poor extremely vulnerable to lead contamination. This can lead to IQ loss in children and increases the risk of miscarriages and stillbirths for pregnant women. The fact that low-income groups are disproportionately faced with many such deadly health risks has repeatedly been highlighted by researchers over the years but sadly very little has been done to address these concerns. Urban slums—a modern-day paradox of cities’ growth—are mushrooming and so is their population. According to World Bank, the latter is growing at double the average urban rate, which means that the situation will only get worse if the myriad issues affecting slum dwellers’ living conditions continue to be neglected. Lack of basic hygiene and sanitation and clean drinking water, for instance, are some of the most pressing issues in Dhaka’s slums. A study conducted early last year came up with this startling finding: water samples collected by slum dwellers from the last delivery point had 99 percent faecal contamination. There are many reasons for this including a network of ageing damaged underground pipelines, lack of waste disposal mechanisms and a poorly managed sewerage system. This is perhaps what you’d call unplanned urbanisation at its worst.

The current trend of urbanisation in Bangladesh, if allowed to continue in the years to come, would spell death for its cities’ liveability. Estimates already show that the national urban population rate is expected to increase from 28 percent of the country’s entire population today to 40 percent by 2025 (World Bank, 2015). This means that almost half of Bangladesh’s population will be living in cities only seven years from now. We are already witnessing the horrific consequences of decades and decades of encroachment upon wetlands, destruction of rivers and filling up of low-lying areas in the capital—the worsening waterlogging situation every year after only minutes of rain being one of them.

Whereas countries around the world are increasingly prioritising proper urban planning—including green infrastructure and low-carbon solutions to urban mobility—urbanisation in Bangladesh is being led by thoughtless development. On paper, good plans do exist—but they are just not being properly implemented. For instance, most of the conservable flood flow zones earmarked in the detailed area plan (DAP) published in an official gazette in 2010 were filled up giving into demands of real estate developers. Not much progress has been made either with regard to making greater Dhaka pedestrian-friendly despite this being one of the focal points of the Strategic Transport Plan.

Environmental degradation is one of the unfortunate by-products of 21st-century urbanisation and industrialisation. And so aspirations of higher economic growth must be based on a smart urban development model that takes into account environmental concerns. In the context of Bangladesh, this would require empowering and reforming institutions at the national level. One of the many recommendations made in the World Bank report is reforming the Department of Environment and equipping it with adequate resources and skilled staff in order to respond effectively to environmental issues. Another oft-repeated point made in regard to urban planning and environmental management in Bangladesh is the need to decentralise. This cannot be highlighted enough. Decentralising to division and district levels is the need of the hour so that the areas with the highest levels of pollution can be prioritised. Similarly, a lack of local-level urban planning partially explains why unplanned urbanisation in the country has spiralled out of control. Departmental and ministerial coordination is yet another longstanding problem that just can’t seem to be solved. This not only hampers implementation of existing plans but also leads to confusion and gives leeway to departments and agencies to play the blame game and evade accountability—as is the case every time the city becomes inundated after minutes of rainfall and Wasa and Dhaka city corporations keep passing the buck to one another.

The severe environmental impact on Dhaka and other cities cannot simply be passed off as a result of rural-to-urban migration—it’s a direct consequence of thoughtless urbanisation. It is a result of the lack of an urban development model that puts people, their wellbeing and the environment first. The lack of accountability and transparency in the way many of the existing plans are being implemented—if at all—continues to be a major thorn in our side. It’s time policymakers understood that urbanisation and growth and the liveability of a city are not mutually exclusive, and thus environmental degradation cannot simply be swept aside or justified as an “inevitable” by-product of growth. The slow environmental destruction we are witnessing today is the consequence of a failure to plan for and execute a vision of a liveable city.

Nahela Nowshin is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Excerpt:

By Nahela Nowshin
Jan 10 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Living costs in Dhaka have soared so high that it’s not just low-income groups struggling to make ends meet—the middle class is feeling the squeeze too. According to an analysis by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), the cost of living in the capital hit a four-year high in 2017 due to rising prices of essentials and utilities. Onions had the highest price hike last year, followed by other vegetables, household gas, rice, liquid milk and beef. The change in the living costs in 2017 went up by an alarming 8.44 percentage points from 2016. Besides, house rent soared by 8.14 percent and electricity by 6.44 percent in 2017 from that a year ago.

Prices of food items and basic utilities such as gas and electricity soared last year. Photo: Star

While the cost of living for millions of Dhaka residents keeps going higher with little to no change in their income, the situation is not as bleak for many. The lucky few are government staff who, with the full implementation of the eighth national pay scale, saw their salaries go up drastically. And it is because of this that total expenditure in the first quarter of FY2016-17 was 15.5 percent higher than a year earlier. It is also because of this that there was a huge jump in non-development spending— up 19.35 percent to Tk 35,325 crore in the first quarter of FY2016-17 whereas only a year earlier non-development spending was 0.32 percent less than the year before that. The salary scale for non-government school, college and madrasa teachers also came into effect in 2017. Last year, it was also reported that the government had doubled pay for local government representatives in city corporations, municipalities, and councils for districts, upazilas and unions.

The reason I am citing these is simply because if you look at the numbers, the massive chunk of total expenditure being spent on government staff and representatives’ and others’ salaries simply cannot be ignored.

The debate about whether the salary increase of government staff under the eighth national pay scale is justified merits a separate article—and a lot has already been written about it in leading newspapers. But just to recap, economists have largely been in favour of the move to raise the pay of government officials because unlike in many countries, public service in Bangladesh has been less-than-rewarding in terms of pay and so, the boost in salary was seen as a way to attract meritorious candidates and tackle inefficiency in public institutions.

However, at the end of the day, this money is coming straight out of taxpayers’ pockets. And whereas economic theory dictates that better wages boost efficiency, reality is far less simple. It has been observed that in developing countries like Bangladesh, good wages are not nearly enough to eradicate corruption—wealth status of a person matters little when we are talking about bribery. Now we have a situation where (i) taxpayers are paying more towards public servants’ salaries, and (ii) corruption in public institutions still exists. So can we really say that we are better off? And how does this affect living costs?

The interlink between government pay raise and inflation is a whole other debate in itself—many sceptics believe pay hikes and inflation don’t exactly have a causal relationship. But generally speaking, inflation is almost always one of the results of increased expenditure on government salaries.

The theory is simple. As purchasing power of a certain section of the population increases because their wages are now higher, there is more money in the market, leading to higher inflation. This of course greatly boosts traders’ confidence who engage in corrupt (the magic word) practices, ultimately leading to skyrocketing prices of commodities and services.

This summary of the effects of a large portion of total expenditure being eaten away by government salaries is, of course, only part of the story. The spiralling prices of rice last year, as we saw, were attributed to a number of things—flash floods, shortage of rice in public granaries, failure to import rice on time, etc. There are a myriad of factors other than just apportioning a major pie of total expenditure to government pay raise.

All the hullabaloo surrounding gas prices last year is an example of how authorities won’t even blink twice before dumping additional expenses on households, even if it means going against the law. The hike happened in two phases—first in March 2017 and then in June 2017. But thankfully, the High Court declared illegal the second phase hike on household consumers since increasing gas prices twice in the same year in a single announcement violated the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act. Mind you, the two-phase hike of 2017 came just two years after gas prices were already hiked in 2015.

The High Court decision was by all means a victory for the people and for the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) which filed the writ petition challenging the legitimacy of the decision by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission to raise gas prices. This was a rare accomplishment by CAB whose influence and strength are far from adequate compared to their counterpart in other countries where consumer rights groups wield significant power. The authority CAB can exercise is limited, which means that it cannot easily bring policy changes that would protect consumer rights.

Of all the things behind the rising cost of living in Dhaka, what remains uniquely inexcusable however is the consistent failure of the government to reduce corruption; it has seeped into every aspect of our lives—and we are quite literally paying the price for it. No sector, no industry, no stage of the supply chain seems to be immune to corruption. And as things now stand, it would be naive to be even slightly optimistic about the future of living affordability in Dhaka. For ordinary people, many of whom already live hand to mouth, the road ahead will be tougher.

Nahela Nowshin is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Excerpt:

Maksuda Begum, a female migrant worker in Lebanon, who had two tumors in her stomach and was suffering from kidney complications for a long time, breathed her last in a hospital in Beirut on January 16. From being abandoned by the family she was working for to being neglected and maltreated by officials of the Bangladesh embassy in Lebanon, the 35-year-old migrant worker’s desperate pleas to repatriate her to Bangladesh fell on deaf ears and her life was eventually cut short.

Maksuda Begum when she was taken to Bangladesh Embassy in Beirut around three months ago. Photo: Collected

These are only a few of countless cases of the horrific abuse and torture faced by Bangladeshi female workers abroad. Despite more and more women participating in the labour force overseas and bringing in huge sums of remittances, our female migrants largely remain vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Whereas countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Indonesia, Philippines and Ethiopia have vehemently denounced abuse faced by their workers abroad and have taken steps to protect their rights, Bangladesh remains an outlier in the region in terms of ensuring the rights of her migrant workers.

In 2015, Indonesia announced a permanent ban on sending women as domestic help to the Middle East after reports of widespread abuse and the execution of two Indonesian maids in Saudi Arabia. But around 900 Indonesian women went to the UAE last year after the Indonesian embassy in Abu Dhabi introduced a pilot system of ‘outsourced model’ in mid-2016 in which men and women can only be recruited through recruitment companies authorised by the embassy for seven categories of work. Conditions imposed by Indonesia include AED 1,200 minimum salary, eight-hour working time daily, and the right to approach the labour court in the event of a dispute. India has also ordered that recruitment of all female workers who hold Emigration Clearance Required (ECR) category passports be done by seven official agencies only. In August of last year, the government of India banned recruitment by private agents for overseas jobs under ECR category. The Philippines recently negotiated a minimum salary of AED 1,500 for workers going to the UAE as housemaids, lifting a ban that they had imposed in 2014.

The dehumanising plight of women migrant workers like Maksuda and Bithi is caused by this very lack of clear mechanisms of recruitment and a failure to delineate our conditions to ensure our workers’ safety as the country-of-origin before we send our workers abroad. In fact, their exploitation starts right here at home, where recruitment agencies openly flout laws charging workers way beyond government-set limits, costing them an arm and a leg. For instance, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment fixed the cost at Tk 165,000 for a worker to go to Saudi Arabia but jobseekers end up paying as much as an exorbitant Tk 1,000,000.

For our female migrant workers, whose primary motivation to go abroad is due to economic purposes, full economic emancipation is rarely achieved given the often inhumane conditions they are forced to work in—from being denied salaries to having their passports confiscated to being verbally and sexually abused.

Given the huge demand for low skilled female workers, particularly in the Middle East where there is a huge demand for domestic workers, it is high time that the government prioritises people over remittance and recognises the leverage that it has and capitalises on it by bargaining for increased wages, insurance, working hours, etc., following in the footsteps of countries like Indonesia, India and Philippines. The recruitment of low skilled workers for overseas jobs by private agencies, which are rarely strictly monitored, needs to be replaced by official agencies authorised by the government. Furthermore, the low skilled nature of our female workforce abroad—women hailing from rural backgrounds with little to no education—makes it all the more necessary for the Bangladesh government to put in place stringent restrictions and conditions upon receiving countries compelling them to respect our workers’ rights.

The writer is a member of the editorial team, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Bangladesh, once again, returned empty-handed from the Olympics this year, retaining its title of the “most populous country of never having won an Olympic medal”. At the beginning of the Rio Olympics, Bangladesh was one of 75 countries with no Olympic medals.

Fiji too was one of them until the country squashed its record of Olympics duck when its rugby team won the gold (and first ever Olympic medal) in the inaugural men’s rugby sevens competition.

Kosovo achieved a similar feat as double world champion Majlinda Kelmendi clinched the gold in the women’s 52 kg category of judo and put a recently-independent Kosovo on the medal table for the first time.

But Bangladesh, along with the likes of war-ravaged Congo and Rwanda, failed to secure any medals at Rio, prompting very little curiosity or concern from Bangladeshis worldwide, who seem to only have high expectations when it comes to the national cricket team.

Funnily enough, Bangladesh’s poor performance at Rio or at the Olympics in general wasn’t a talking point until the Margarita Mamun saga came into focus. Margarita, the gold medallist in women’s individual all-around rhythmic gymnastics at Rio, born to a Bangladeshi father and a Russian mother, called her win a “victory for two countries”.

When the war of words played out on social media between those who took her statement at face value and those who asserted that Bangladesh had no role to play in her success, it was clear that the majority, like myself, conceded that Margarita would have never had the opportunities to become the star gymnast she is today had she built a life in Bangladesh.

There is no question that her dreams of being a world champion rhythmic gymnast wouldn’t have seen the light of day; from being ridiculed and shamed for wearing “tight, skimpy” clothes to never being afforded proper training or basic facilities to practice, Margarita would have never stood a chance in her paternal homeland.

This tug-of-war between the two camps debating the contribution of Bangladesh, or a lack thereof, to Margarita’s achievements, nonetheless made one thing clear: Bangladesh is desperate to claim an Olympic victory.

Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves, why are we failing so miserably at providing an environment conducive for producing world-class athletes who will be able to excel in platforms like the Olympics?

Our misplaced urge to jump on the glory bandwagon, as a lot of us did when Margarita won, upon a nationalistic whim, and our subsequent refusal to acknowledge why we’re wrong in claiming something that is not rightfully ours, is strongly indicative of a lack of trust in our own athletes.

With the better part of our focus and investment expended on cricket – a colonial legacy and a powerful expression of cultural nationalism for not only Bangladesh but also for South Asia as a whole – it is little wonder that other types of sports are widely neglected.

The lack of sports infrastructure, facilities, opportunities and incentives available to youngsters to professionally take up a career in sports (other than cricket) is a major obstacle to our ability to venture past the likes of cricket and football.

With the exception of trailblazers like mountaineer-activist Wasfia Nazreen, young men and women hardly have a non-cricket role model to look up to.

Even a rudimentary Google search will show you the glaring paucity of Bangladeshi athletes competing at the international level in various kinds of sports.

A general societal attitude that discourages youngsters to pursue their passion (including aspirations of becoming an athlete) and pushes them to pick the “safer” career path such as engineering, medicine, BBA, etc., is killing the hopes of all those who dare to dream.

Thankfully, we have a number of non-cricket sporting achievements, albeit rare, to show for, thanks to athletes such as Abdullah Baki (silver medallist in shooting at the 2014 Commonwealth Games) and Asif Hossain Khan (gold medallist in shooting at the 2002 Commonwealth Games). But it is still a far cry from tasting a victory at the Olympics.

The gravity of our underperformance at the Olympics is underpinned by the population factor. Besides being the eighth most populous country in the world, Bangladesh is undergoing a demographic transition thanks to its increasing growth rate in the working age population in the last decade.

An overwhelming portion of the present population is below 25 years of age. It is, therefore, an embarrassment of sorts for Bangladesh to be grouped together in the ‘zero Olympic medal’ category with countries with a minute fraction of our population (Lesotho: population of 2 million; Swaziland: population of 1.25 million).

The population profile of the rest of the countries in this category in its entirety makes our incompetence incomprehensible. How have we not been able to harness our youth potential and produce a single viable contender good enough to make it to the finals in a single sport at the Olympics since our first appearance in 1984?

Reportedly, the contingent of Bangladeshi athletes arrived in Rio without their original coaches. Instead, officials accompanied these athletes, in effect replacing their coaches. Swimmers Mahfizur Rahman Sagor and Sonia Akter Tumpa’s coach at Rio was Bangladesh Swimming Federation general secretary Rafizuddin Rafiz who has no coaching background.

Moreover, Bangladesh Athletics Federation’s senior vice-president Shah Alam was nominated to be the coach for sprinters Mezbahuddin Ahmed and Shirin Akter despite the fact that Alam left his coaching career more than a decade ago. Although athletes have repeatedly voiced their opinions on the integral role that a coach plays during such big, competitive events, bureaucracy and nepotism often trump the demands and needs of athletes.

These malpractices are a manifestation of a broader culture of nonchalance and institutional corruption and a complete disregard for any sport that is not cricket.

Recently, British journalist Piers Morgan came under heavy fire on social media for tweeting this about India, “1,200,000,000 people and not a single Gold medal at the Olympics? Come on India, this is shameful. Put the bunting away & get training.”

India won two medals at Rio, none of which were gold, and Morgan simply didn’t understand the cause for so much celebration. Many Indians didn’t take his words lightly and reacted with some fiery comebacks. It now makes me wonder, if Morgan had hurled criticism at Bangladesh for being the most populous country with an Olympic duck, what would have been our reaction?

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh