Bangladesh pulls ahead of Pakistan

Bangladesh pulls ahead of Pakistan

Published in the Statesman 

7 May 2013

bharat dogra

Before the emergence of Bangladesh as a separate nation, East Pakistan was widely regarded within the united country as the most backward part and also suffered a lot of injustice. It is, therefore, a very credible achievement on the part of Bangladesh that it has now surpassed Pakistan in some very significant development indicators.

Of course, it is true that in terms of national income and per capita income, Pakistan is comparatively much more prosperous; the per capita GDP of Pakistan in PPP dollar terms is about one-and-a-half times that of Bangladesh. But this makes the achievement of Bangladesh all the more praiseworthy ~ at a level of lower per capita income, it has managed to surpass Pakistan in several important development indicators.

In terms of the extremely important indicator of infant mortality rate or IMR (per 1,000 live births), Bangladesh has managed to reduce it to 38 while Pakistan has a much higher IMR of 70. Similarly, in the case of child mortality under the age of 5, Bangladesh is miles ahead with a mortality rate of 48 compared to 87 for Pakistan (as per the Human Development Report 2013).

Although Bangladesh has not managed to bring down the maternal mortality rate as significantly, it is lower than that of Pakistan. While the maternal mortality rate (per 1,00,00 live births) in Pakistan is 260, it is 240 in Bangladesh.

The importance of women’s education has been increasingly recognised as well in recent times in Bangladesh. An indicator frequently used in this context is the percentage of women who have attained at least secondary level education. Seen from this point of view, Bangladesh is well ahead of Pakistan. While only 18 per cent of women have received secondary education in Pakistan, the number for Bangladesh is 31 per cent.

It is now increasingly recognised that women’s education, while being significant in itself, also helps improve health and is crucial in ensuring higher survival rates. Pakistan’s poor performance in improving women’s education has had an adverse impact on its ability to reduce infant and child mortality rates. On the other hand, Bangladesh’s success in improving not only women’s education, but also enabling many other aspects of women’s empowerment had a positive impact on the country’s ability to improve child survival rates.

Already, the achievement of Bangla-desh in reducing infant and child mortality is being cited as a major success-story of recent times by development and health experts. In 1990, Bangladesh had a high infant mortality of 97, but by 2004, it had succeeded in reducing its IMR to just 38 (which was lower than the IMR in not just Pakistan, but India as well). This is certainly a very significant achievement for any country, and the people of Bangladesh can be justly proud of this.

The writer is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements