Institutions for Development: URBANISATION AND LAND ISSUES IN BANGLADESH

	Author:Sadiq Ahmed, Mohiuddin Alamgir, Mustafa K. Mujeri	672 Views

This volume, Institutions for Development: Urbanisation and Land Issues in Bangladesh, is a collection of essays presented at the Third Bangladesh Economists’ Forum (BFF) Conference held in Dhaka in December 2016. Although the theme of the Conference was ‘Institutions for Development’, recognising the large arena of institutional reform challenges, the Conference focused on two critical institutional concerns: urbanisation and land management.

Economic growth and urbanisation are strongly associated. Urban areas provide many potential advantages for improving living conditions through economics of scale and proximity they provide for most forms of infrastructure and services. However, the experience with urbanisation in Bangladesh is rather dismal. The book shows how chaotic and unplanned urbanisation has led to poor quality of cities. It also digs down deeper on the political economy aspects of urban governance issue drawing from the experiences of Dhaka and Chittagong.

As an inter-related issue, the book takes a holistic look at various aspects of land management as it relates to Bangladesh’s development and the underlying political economy. The book argues that the ability to improve land management and fuel the emergence of an efficient land market will have a determining influence on Bangladesh’s ability to successfully move to the upper middle income country status within the next twenty years or so.