Leaving No One Behind: Exclusion and Marginalisation Challenges in Bangladesh

The world is experiencing rapid poverty reduction, while income inequality remains alarmingly high. Therefore, the benefits of accelerated growth could not be grasped by a segment of the population due to marginalisation and exclusion. They remain outside the mainstream of development, which is not desirable for a country. For example, the constitution of Bangladesh ensures rights for human dignity to all irrespective of their religion, class or race. The question is why some people have been excluded. As you may be aware, it happens through a process whereby someone is pushed to the edge of a group or excluded from participating in a decision-making process. And their needs are being ignored or unheard. This situation does not only exist in Bangladesh, but it is also a common phenomenon almost in all countries of the world. For this, recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations endorsed the issue of inequality. The number 10 goal of SDGs, out of 17 goals, is “Reduced Inequalities”. So, it is not possible to have inclusive development for our country without including people from all courses of lives in development agendas.

Bangladesh has achieved significant success in reducing poverty and to some extent, inequality. But these are very difficult tasks. It is becoming even more difficult to reach marginalised people, who often live in fragile contexts and remote areas. Access to good schools, healthcare, electricity, safe water and other critical services remain elusive for many people, often determined by socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and geography. Moreover, for those who have been able to move out of poverty, progress is often temporary: economic shocks, food insecurity and climate change threaten to rob them of their hard-won gains and force them back into poverty.

However, I would like to reiterate my gratitude to the Government of Bangladesh, for supporting special quota system for the disadvantaged people of Bangladesh in civil services and the enrolment process of higher education institutions. Government of Bangladesh established a separate ministry to deal CHT affairs. In addition, there are a number of government’s organisations and institutions that are working to preserve the culture and traditions of minority groups. These all are positive initiatives from the government towards inclusive development. Bangladesh is preparing to undertake the challenges of achieving the targets of “Sustainable Development Goals” and will hopefully, do extraordinarily well as we did in achieving MDGs.

Poverty and inequality is a multi-dimensional problem. A number of pragmatic programmes and projects need to be taken to address multi-dimensional aspects of poverty and inequality. The Government of Bangladesh works to expand the horizon of access to finance for the excluded, for creating opportunities and also promoting other non-financial services for the marginal people, which are contributing to women’s empowerment and their access of assets. The government also attempts to protect the poor from any loss of assets and empower them so that they can participate in decision making processes. However, need-based and demand-driven strategies need to be prepared considering the needs of excluded people. For example, marginalised occupational groups (day labourer, domestic help, beggar, sex worker, tea labourer etc), demographically marginalised groups (elderly person, street children etc), disabled group (physically disabled, emotionally disable etc), poor female-headed households, geographically isolated groups (people living in char, haor, hilly and coastal areas) and other minority groups are being considered in this strategy. The government needs to continue its efforts to improve the economic condition of the disadvantaged people and ensure their human dignity. It has achieved laudable success but we have miles to go as all indicators both in income and human poverty for those people are depressing compared to the national average in Bangladesh. I hope if we work together, it would not be that difficult to have an inclusive society in Bangladesh within a short-period of time.