Session 7: COSTS AND CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPMENT

Thursday, Dec 9 2021 | 6:00pm – 7:45pm | Bangladesh Time (GMT+6)

Dr Iftekhar Iqbal
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Scinces, Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Paper Title – Bangladesh Environment since Independence: Internal Dynamics and External Challenges

Abstract:

At its birth in 1971, Bangladesh inherited major environmental legacies of floodings and cyclones, upended by widespread arsenic contamination in the 1980s. Since the turn of the century, the challenge of climate change has kept informing the academic and popular discourses. If looked from the vantage point of the impact of macroeconomic growth since liberalization, a complex set of evolving environmental trajectories could be identified. As the nation celebrates fifty years of independence, at a time when economic development must embrace sustainability, environmental issues demand holistic and critical explorations. In this larger context, this paper examines the internal and external environmental challenges facing Bangladesh since independence with an eye to policy and civil society responses.