SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
Sustainability currently seems
to be everywhere. It has achieved wide ‘purchase’ in many fields, from
environmental and social justice activism, to government and the corporate
sector. Contemporary mainstream notions of sustainable development expose as a
tri-dimensional concept. The dimensions are the interface between economic,
social and environmental sustainability. Recently culture came forward as
another dimension of sustainability. These four components or pillars are
interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The social dimension of sustainability
has received far less attention than the economic and environmental aspects.
This applies both to academic and policy circles, and in respect of both the
conceptual framework and the practical reporting of social sustainability in
triple bottom line reports. This lack of attention to the social dimension of
sustainability is noted by many authors (Adebowale 2002, Koning 2001, McKenzie
2004, WACOSS 2002).
Social sustainability relates to
the maintenance of political and community values. Social values and norms,
being largely intangible, relate to the “ethics, value systems, language,
education, work attitudes, class systems” and so on, that influence societal
relations. Social sustainability also speaks to the satisfaction of basic human
needs within the society such as food, clothing, and shelter. The
sustainability of social needs and values alludes to the quality of growth that
occurs in the economy. Equity in the distribution of resources is integral to
social sustainability.
The conceptual framework for
social sustainability is widely acknowledged as underdeveloped (Koning 2001). A
lack of compatibility between perspectives derived from the natural and social
sciences is not uncommon, from the current vantage point it is perhaps
surprising that it has taken so long for the sustainability debate to
acknowledge ‘the social’, or conversely, for social scientists to acknowledge
the relevance of sustainability as a concept. Becker et. al. (1999) pointed out, while sustainability is usually
associated with an environmental focus, ‘it nevertheless describes a field of
investigation that is based on a society-oriented definition of problems’.
Rather than being ‘about’ the environment then, sustainability can be conceived
of as a fundamentally sociological question. McKenzie (2004) explained the
‘working definition’ that social sustainability is ‘a life-enhancing condition
within communities and a process within communities that can achieve that
condition’, and that this condition has the following features:
•
Equity of access to key services (including health, education,
transport, housing and recreation)
•
Equity between generations, meaning that future generations will not be
disadvantaged by the activities of the current generation
•
A system of cultural relations in which the positive aspects of
disparate cultures are valued and promoted when it desired by individuals and
groups
•
Widespread political participation of citizens not only in electoral
procedures buy also in other areas of political activity, particularly at a
local level
•
A system for transmitting awareness of social sustainability from one
generation to the next
•
A sense of community responsibility for maintaining that system of
transmission
•
Mechanisms for a community to collectively identify its strengths and
needs’.
2. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Western Australian Council of
Social Service (WACOSS, 2002) developed a useful model of social
sustainability. It is an extremely detailed consideration of the issue and
potentially highly useful. The WACOSS model of social sustainability also
includes a set of principles which represent the goals of socially sustainable
communities, namely:
Equity: The community provides equitable opportunities and
outcomes for all its members, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable
members of the community. While equity is listed as a separate principle, it is
such a fundamental component that it can’t be separated from the other
principles. In this way, equity is a
filter through which all other principles are viewed.
Diversity: The community promotes and encourages diversity.
Interconnectedness: The community provides
processes, systems and structures that promote connectedness within and outside
the community at the formal, informal and institutional level.
Quality of life: The community ensures that
basic needs are met and fosters a good quality of life for all members at the
individual, group and community level.
Democracy and governance: The community provides
democratic processes and open and accountable governance structures.
3. DIMENSIONS OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
While the difficulty of
proposing a singular definition for social sustainability, or a definitive
‘checklist’ should by now be apparent. A number of common themes, suggesting
there is reasonable agreement about the basic dimensions or features of social
sustainability. A reasonable distillation of these dimensions is as follows:
quality of life, equity, inclusion, access, a futures focus and participatory
processes.
3.1
Quality of life: While ‘quality of life’ may be hard to define, and is necessarily
subjective, the phrase does provide a useful means of focusing on the
qualitative ‘human’ dimension of social sustainability – we are fundamentally
talking about improving the quality of people’s lives. The UK Government uses
the term ‘quality of life’ synonymously with sustainable development in the
belief that it is more readily understood by the general public. However, it
makes the important qualification that ‘quality of life for people today must
not be achieved at the expense of people in the future’ (DETR, 2000). The term
must also imply a focus on improvements that can be made to the lives of
disadvantaged groups in particular, rather than being a means to justify the
unsustainable levels of consumption and waste that tend to accompany the
pursuit of increased ‘quality of life’ by already wealthy or privileged groups.
Quality of life is a key principle, but one that cannot be pursued in isolation
from the next principle– equity.
3.2
Equity (or social justice): Equity is the most commonly
mentioned requirement for social sustainability. As high levels of inequity and
social division are so clearly linked with conflict and instability, ongoing
social inequity must be seen as a major impediment to achieving social
sustainability. Equity must be the
overarching guiding principle for any approach to social sustainability. As the
AURDR in full (1995) put it, “social sustainability will only be achieved
through the pursuit of social equity”. The contribution of equity strategies to
social sustainability is also stressed by Stren and Polese (2000) who argue
that “social sustainability is strongly reflected in the degree to which
inequalities and social discontinuity are reduced”. Numerous authors argue that social
sustainability must have a redistributive element, that a sustainable community
must be an equitable one. McManus (1999) for example, argues that any
definition of sustainability must include a social justice component,
because
Without inter- and
intra-generational equity the earth becomes a ‘fire-sale’ for conspicuous
consumption by a wealthy minority, while people who are poor adopt desperate
poverty-alleviation measures which are detrimental to the environment.
The focus on social justice should
make it clear that sustainability does not imply an endorsement of current
social conditions. On the contrary, it should be recognized that (for example)
natural capital stocks have previously been lost to certain groups –
particularly indigenous people – and this must be addressed through “a
retrospective social justice component” (McManus, 1999)
3.3
Inclusion: Closely
related to the concept of equity is the notion of inclusion. Many authors
stress current levels of social exclusion as one of the impediments to
achieving social sustainability. Social exclusion refers to the way poverty,
deprivation and related social problems work to exclude people both physically
(through inequitable access to transport, jobs or public services for example)
and socially from the benefits and opportunities afforded by full social and
economic participation. Specific means
of tackling social exclusion are therefore an important part of social
sustainability strategies. As Stren and Polese (2000) argue, social sustainability
is “the polar opposite of exclusion, both in territorial and social terms”.
Working towards social sustainability then, means focusing on how to better
integrate or include disadvantaged communities in economic, social and
political life. This is a similar goal to that described in the WACOSS model as
the ‘promotion of interconnectedness within and outside the community at the
formal, informal and institutional level’.
3.4
Access: Working towards social sustainability requires
increasing the level of access (to resources, services and opportunities) for
those currently experiencing social exclusion. This means addressing
inequitable levels of access to all aspects of life, from employment, housing
and living conditions, services and facilities, to opportunities for
participation in social, cultural and political structures and processes. As
noted above, this requires particular attention to be paid to those groups of
people whose access to resources and opportunities has historically been
compromised.
3.5 A
‘futures focus’: Adopting a sustainability
perspective implies a concern with the future as well as the present. Social
sustainability requires the creation of a just society in the present, and
the establishment of structures and processes that will guarantee lasting and
continuing justice. Thus social sustainability requires the conditions to be
created for the maintenance and improvement of just social conditions for
current and future generations. Here we see the focus on the relationship between
the needs of the present and the needs of future generations that is central to
the Brundtland definition.
3.6
Participatory processes: Working towards social
sustainability necessitates the establishment of inclusive, consultative and
preferably participative processes for citizens’ involvement, both in
the identification of issues and the development of goals, structures and
decision-making processes
Sustainable
development and community participation must go hand in hand. You can’t
have one without the other. You can dress up all sorts of useful things at the
local level in the trappings of sustainable development, but unless those
useful things are rooted in and permanently nurtured by their host communities
they simply won’t deliver the long term environmental or social dividends now
available to us. (Porritt, 1998)
Robinson argues that
sustainability is a process, not an end-state to be reached. It might be
thought of as: “the emergent property of a conversation about desired futures
that is informed by some understanding of the ecological, social and economic
consequences of different courses of action” (Robinson 2004). If sustainability
is largely a social project, and an ongoing process, then it pays to devote
some energy to developing improved social processes for enabling this
‘conversation about desired futures’. This includes developing “methods of
deliberation and decision-making that actively engage the relevant interests
and communities in thinking through and deciding upon the kind of future they
want to try to create”, including “processes that allow diversity to be
expressed without creating paralysis” (Robinson, 2004).
4. SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVES
Article 28, the constitution of Peoples Republic
of Government of Bangladesh has granted protection to all citizens in the
following words, “The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on
ground only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth” (GoB, 1972).
Constitutionally every individual is protected by law but the reality is
different. The society being rigidly stratified and economic resources unevenly
distributed the social justice like right to food; shelter, clothing,
education, health, and physical protection are not ensured to all. This report
has separately discussed about each of the above aspects in this section of the
report. NSDS is concerned with citizen rights because development activities
should not only ensure better life for all but should also ensure the
protection of interest of all irrespective of their socio-economic statuses.
Monsoor (1999) claims this provision to exist in the constitution for women
only in public sphere but not in private sphere. This means that there are many
areas in which women are discriminated and for which there is no protection for
them. NSDS’ goal is to set strategies to ensure the protection of public and
private rights of all that may be affected due to activities of sustainable
development. The targets of social sustainability are as follows:
- Avail quality health and sanitation services for all
- Minimum shelter for all, access to services/utilities
- Quality education
- Social safety net
- Gender equity/ women empowerment
- Special services for children, aged, and disabled
- Provide employment opportunities
- Access to information and communication facilities
- Arrest marginalization
- Keep cultural diversity
4.1 Avail quality health and sanitation services for all
Bangladesh with her around 142 million people has
only 2860 hospitals as of 2008 (BBS 2009). Persons per hospital bed are 1860
inclusive of non-government ones, persons per physician are 2860. Per capita
government expenditure on health and family planning is only Tk. 2,960 (about
US$ 40). However, life expectancy has increased to 66.9 years possibly for controlling
of epidemics and immunization of children. The health scenarios amply
demonstrate that health service is inadequate and a significant proportion of
populations are bound to deprive of their rights of health simply due to
non-availability of services. Family planning program is an important component
of health. Ministry has achieved significant success at the end of the last
century regarding decline of fertility rate, increase of contraceptive
prevalence rate (56%, BBS 2007) and fall of infant mortality rate (53 per 1000,
WB, 2005). Despite these few successes Bangladesh is far short of catching up
Asian countries like South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand (WB, 2005) with regard
to health services.
For sustainable development it should have full coverage
of health services and increase the contraceptive prevalence rate in order to
stabilize our population at zero growth level as fast as possible to have a
healthy labour force. The task is a difficult one particularly given our
national resources. The primary goal of our health sector should be to reduce
incidences of diseases that seasonally occur and persist among the poor for
lake of information and undesirable environment in which they live. For this
purpose public health sector must be strengthened to reduce the incidences of
diseases. Health education is an important component of public health sector,
which should be vigorously, launched both at rural and urban areas to make
people aware of the diseases and to apply appropriate measures before the
occurrence of incidences. Health education program can be greatly improved
though coordination at all levels and sectors of the country. Government and
NGOs can form coordination committees and share each other work and avoid
duplication of the same work. Also field workers of agriculture, social
welfare, family planning etc. can be make made multipurpose workers through
training. Each worker along with her/his departmental work may render health
service to the people.
Investment in public health sector is most crucial
for reducing the incidence of diseases as such measures minimizes the breeding
of diseases. For example, investment for safe drinking water will reduce water
born diseases requiring minimum clinical services. It is necessary to identify
the areas for investment in public health and calculate the cost benefits for
setting priorities. Although priority should be given to public health sector,
the importance of clinical services must not be undermined because the poor
cannot afford service at private clinics. There are concerns about the mushroom
growth of private clinics and phenomenal rise of prices of those services.
Since all these private clinics and hospitals use the services of limited
numbers of available physicians, government hospitals and clinic are
continuously suffering from shortage of specialists and general physicians. And
those who are still with the government service give more time to serve the
relatively wealthy clients of private hospitals and clinics.
Therefore, a crisis situation exists in health
sector particularly to cover the poor patients. There is no serious thought
given in these sector, there is hardly any short term goal for it. Once in
Chinese style village doctors were produced with a short training for treatment
of common diseases but that program is stopped now. There should be an
evaluation about the quality of service these village doctor’s are providing to
the people. The long term goal to overcome these problem is to produce more
doctors by establishing opportunities for higher training so that specialized
physicians can be sent to outside big cities and towns and more general
physician can be made available to people.
Since making clinical service available to people
is time consuming public health sector should be strengthened to keep the
incidences of disease as low as possible. There has been a strong campaign as
well as activities to improve the sanitation system of the country. Success
record is very encouraging, nearly 81% of the families in the country have
modern sanitary system (internet, UNSTAT, 2006). The sanitation program is
implemented by the Government along with UNICEF. NGOs are supplying material
for sanitary latrine at a very cheap rate (US$7.0) in installments. Consider
the progress and level of intervention from different stakeholders, it may be
concluded that in a very short time all families of the country will be using
sanitary latrine. The only thing that has to be done is to continue the present
activities in this sector.
Bangladesh was about to provide safe drinking
water to all households but arsenic in water has become a problem. However,
recent invention of cheap instrument by a Bangladeshi scientist in the USA has
made it easy to make arsenic free water from the tube-well. It is expected that
Government as well as NGOs will popularize this instrument and make available
to people. At present nearly 25% of the total population does not have access
to safe drinking water. The most water now available for drinking is lifted by
tube-well. It is reported that groundwater is depleting at a faster rate and
arsenic in water is the consequence of it. Once tube-well was few and people
used to use surface water both for drinking and agricultural purpose.
Availability of deep tube-well and electricity has changed the previous
practices. Today it has become necessary to think about the old aged practices.
It probably true demand of growing need of water supply can not be met by
harvesting rain water in rainy season but it has potential to minimize lifting
groundwater by harvesting it for domestic and agricultural use. The campaign
may be made stronger to motivate people to use surface water as much as
possible which is also environment friendly.
4.2 Minimum Shelters for all: Access to Services and Utilities
Ensure minimum shelters for all including access
to services and utilities is the second block under social sustainability. A
great number of poor especially in the urban areas are practically homeless or
slum dwellers. Some researchers argue that about one-thirds of the Dhaka
population live in slums or under the open sky (Rahman, 2000). It is well
recognized that Bangladesh is also vulnerable to natural disasters such as
cyclone, flood, river erosion and drought. These natural disasters render
thousands of people homeless every year. The cyclone Sidr alone destroyed
innumerable homes displacing thousand of families. Research has shows that the
majority of rural –urban migration is associated with natural disasters such as
cyclones, floods, drought, river bank erosion which directly affects the
livelihoods of the people. Since this has become a common occurrence, a
permanent solution is required immediately. Different researches have shown
that the migrants in cities are mostly victims of cyclone, river erosion,
flood, and poverty. Hence, the shelter for the poor is a serious problem not
only in the cities but also in rural areas particularly who looses their homes
due to cyclone and other natural disaster. Since occurrence of natural disasters
has become almost a routine matter in Bangladesh, a permanent solution of it is
necessary.
In principal, the first step in this regard should
be to protect and shelter people during the disaster particularly at the time
of cyclone, flood, tidal bore, and tornado. There is still shortage of cyclone
and disaster shelters in coastal areas. A large numbers of shelters must be
built in the coastal belt of the country. Government has undertaken long term
projects for building the shelters with the help of foreign donors and local
contributors. The most serious concern for the victims is the waiting time
between the incidence and the arrival of the help to rebuild their homes,
although many promise soon after the disaster. A substantial amount must be
allocated in annual national budget to render services to the victims as
natural disasters are visiting almost every year which has relationship with
climate change. In addition to public fund, at local level capacity building
program should be taken to make people able to help themselves in building
their own houses using their own and local resources. The program should target
not only the potential victims but also the community as a unit of action,
which means in case of emergency community members will act as a group.
Disaster victims are not only the shelter-less
people rather shelter-less people are gradually increasing due to high
migration rate to cities and towns and rural poverty. For sustainable
development shelter for these people should also be ensured. Before making any
plan a clear statistics about the actual numbers of shelter-less people in the
rural and urban areas and must have projection about the future rate of
shelter-less people. These people are likely to be poor and unskilled, who will
migrate wherever they will get an employment. Therefore, one of the industrial
policies may be to decentralize the industries to get in such locations where
people can come from home to workplace. In fact, in some areas individual
industrialists have located there plants in rural areas. The advantages on the
part of the industrialists and workers are that no extra housing is needed, no
new plant for water supply is required, no disruption of the existing natural
setting. However, all industries can not be set in rural setting. Hence, there
will always be a need for shelter for the poor workers. New or old shelters
also require utilities like water, fuel and electricity. All these are also in
short supply in the country.
Both the rural and urban areas are dependent on
ground water to meet the daily needs. In urban areas ground water is used for
both domestic and industrial purposes while in the rural areas, irrigation is
carried out using mostly groundwater. Lifting of ground water without giving
chance to replenish it is threatening our future source of drinking and
irrigation water. Drying of surface water due to long drought is creating
crisis for domestic use for us and domestic animals. The immediate solution to
this problem is to reduce our dependency upon the groundwater and increase our
dependency upon surface water. Also for all big cities water treatment plans
should be installed to treat the water for recycling. In the absence of it,
water should be drawn from river and other surface water bodies as a short term
measure. Also along with these a health education program should be vigorously
pursued for making people aware of the crisis and motivate them for rational
use of water. Both in rural and urban areas people should be informed how to
harvest rainwater for drinking purpose. This will seasonally reduce the demand
on supply water in towns and ground water in rural areas.
With the disappearance of forests and homestead
gardens in our rural areas fuel wood is gradually becoming a serious crisis
both in villages and towns where natural gas supply is yet to reach. Even today
the vast majority of the families in the country depend upon the wood for
cooking purpose. It is not possible to supply gas to all parts of the country
given our sources and technical know-how. Also we still don’t know our total
reserve. Under this situation, we have to be very pragmatic in using available
natural resources. Some of organizations namely BCSIR have already introduced
fuel efficient biogas stove for cooking. The project is yet to get momentum.
These stoves are run by different agriculture waste products and wood dust.
Government as well as NGOs should jointly organize programs to popularize this
technique of cooking for saving our trees and plants. Social forestry program
executioners may also encourage people to opt for new method of cooking because
that will reduce the dependence of people on the fuel wood.
Production of electricity, know to all, is far
short of demand. At this point it is not possible to ensure electricity for all
in the country. In fact, it is going to take long time to cover the whole
country although we have already started the program in a modest way. However,
installed capacity is 5245MW (by 2006) but that produce hardly around 3500 MW,
(BBS, 2007). Since production of electricity is not possible overnight
alternative source of energy like solar is being used by limited numbers of
relatively batter-off families in outreach areas. Grameen Shakti an NGO is now
working in the area. Some other agencies are also possibly planning to be in
it. Right now the approach should be to improve the efficiency of the
organization (PDB) to maximize the production and reduce the system loss.
However, in future any expansion of the distribution of electricity, the poor
should get the priority.
4.3 Quality Education for All
Universal primary level
enrolment is one of the main educational goals of MDG. The gross primary
enrolment rate had increased from 61% in 1980 to 96% by 2005 (WB 2007). The
dropout rate is also significant. Out of all enrolled students 66.3% complete
the primary level education (5th grade). Enrolment and staying in school are
associated with living standard of students, parental schooling, occupation of
parents, access to infrastructure, and food for education program.
Gender disparity both in primary
and secondary level has decreased over the last decade (WB 2005). However,
enrolment and continuing in school don’t ensure the quality of education.
Education watch (2002) claims that one-third of the children after completing
five years of schooling are reported to be without functional skills of
literacy and numeric ability. The government has taken two major steps to
improve the quality of education: first, to improve the classroom environment,
and second, to strengthen education management. Plans have also been drawn to
improve the quality of teachers through training and better recruitment.
The government plan for
improving the quality of education focus more at school levels while teachers
for these schools come from the college and universities. If colleges and
universities don’t produce quality graduates, schools can’t have good teachers.
A master plan is prepared by the past government for improving the quality of
higher education but that has yet to be implemented. Bangladesh not only needs
high quality education but also diversification of education particularly
expansion of technical education. 56 private universities are imparting
education only on few subjects that have relatively better job market.
Education must have twin goals; one is to prepare a person for enabling her/him
to be effective in real life, another one to make the person a good citizen
with necessary attributes. In term of strategy it is necessary to find how far
our educational institutions of private and public sectors are meeting these
goals. In the age of globalization, evaluate the compatibility of our graduates
with the advanced societies is absolute needs, otherwise development will not
be able to keep pace with them.
4.4 Social Safety Net
In Bangladesh, government,
semi-government and some industries have system of pension, gratuity, and
provident fund for their employees but nothing for the people in general.
However, it has free medical services in government hospitals and maternal and
child health clinics for all. The quality of service being very poor in these
canters middle and upper class people have almost abandoned to go to them.
Bangladesh does not pension and unemployment allowance for non-service holders.
Only recently a microscopic few receive old age pension, which again is very
meager. The traditional safety net for the poor was the land lords who used to
employ large number of workers, give lands for share cropping, and lend money
during crisis. Their relationships with land lords were like patron-client, but
that system is fast disappearing. Extended families were the safety net for
their family members because all family members were living in the same house
and eat from the same kitchen. All income from members was handled by the head
of the family. Thus unemployment of a member was not a problem as his/her food,
shelter, and clothing were ensured by the family. Her/his membership in the
family was the insurance of life and living.
That safety net is disappearing
because extended families are breaking down due to migration of families to new
locations individually as well as nuclear family. In fact, the process of
breaking extended families into nuclear ones is becoming very common both in
urban and rural areas. Breaking of them means the end of traditional safety net
of the poor, without having an alternative support for them. The safety net is
totally absent for the disaster victims, disabled, sick, old people, and widow.
It is not possible to create a social security system in a foreseeable future
because of resource constraint. However, we first need to know the numbers of
people need public support for their survival. A master plan must be prepared
as a long term goal to bring all people under the social safety net. In master
plan priorities should be given to old, widow (without children), disabled,
etc. We are aware that such a plan is difficult to make and employment but we
can’t wait for an indefinite period.
4.5 Gender Equity and Women Empowerment
Women in Bangladesh are
apparently guaranteed sexual equality by constitution of Bangladesh and the
general law, but patriarchal interpretation of the law continues the dominance
of patriarchal attitudes (Monsoor, 1999). There is an internal contradiction
within the constitution granting sexual equality and making special laws for
women. However, whatever rights are granted in the constitution is not enjoyed
by women of Bangladesh. Hence, there is urgent need of ensuring equity rather
than equality. There is no need of discussing the present subordinate status of
women in Bangladesh as the fact is well documented. The question now is how to
achieve first the equity and then equality.
There have been various programs
introduced both by the government and NGOs to empower women. One of the
important efforts is to increase economic power of women, which means providing
opportunity for earning cash money and having control over it. Micro credit
programs of Grameen Bank and other NGOs have achieved remarkable success in
that but coverage of this program is limited to only the poorest of the poor
groups who are only a portion of the total women population. Women are also far behind men in education
and higher level occupations. Government has introduced quota system in govt.
jobs and education facilities to make up the gap. The encouraging factor is
that female enrolment in primary and secondary levels are rising appreciably in
recent years.
We believe the present laws and
government policies are quite adequate for meeting the requirements of equity
for women but lack implementation. According laws of the country there is
minimum age for marriage of women, dowry is illegal, marrying second time without the consent of the first
wife is illegal, and some share of husband’s and parental properties are
guaranteed by law, but hardly these are executed. Therefore, along with
enactment of news laws for ensuring the equity, the implementation of earlier
laws must be guaranteed.
For the purpose, the most
important role can be played by the media. In fact, media has given invaluable
services regarding acid throwing, dowry, child marriage, etc. Journalists
should be made aware of available laws of the land and the laws that are needed
to be enacted in future for ensuring equality. Law enforcing agencies should be
oriented about the importance of proper execution of laws. Along with
orientation program strong monitoring system should be developed to check the
negligence of law enforcing agencies and proper implementation of the program.
The most powerful force for achieving equity and equality is social movement
against stereotyped image of women and religious misgivings. NGOs are working
for it. Their hands must be made strong through local support. We have seen many
child marriages are stopped by local initiative and government actions. To
erase present image of women, gender equity and empowerment should be included
in school and college syllabuses, since school and college enrolment are
increasing significantly. The single most important element of women
empowerment is their economic independence. We have earlier mentioned that NGOs
and Grameen Bank are providing micro credit for the purpose. We should go
beyond micro-credit particularly for lower middle and middle class women who
virtually remain dependent upon husbands for lack of education and any job
skill. These women for very cultural reason can’t accept occupation like lower
class women. We should come up with some program to utilized this labour force
who has now significant leisure time due to availability of time saving modern
domestic gadgets.
Attention should also be given
to continuation of female students in schools and colleges. Although enrolment
of boys and girls at primary level is almost equal but the latter’s dropout
rate is high at higher levels. Efforts should be made to reduce the dropout
rates of female students and direct them to go for vocational education so that
their chances of pursuing occupation become easier.
4.6 Special Services for Children, Aged and Disabled
Bangladesh signed the UN
convention on the rights of the child and subsequently formed an association
namely Shishu Adhikar Forum (Blanchet, 1996). The term ‘Child rights’ is
conveniently construed as children’s needs by developing agencies while UN
Convention refers it to the identity of child as an individual person gradually
developing a sense of agency and autonomy. The signing of the convention has
actually changed nothing. Different interventions, such as child nutrition,
immunization, and education program are meant to meet children’s needs, which
development agencies consider as means of upholding child rights. The rights of
freedoms of expression, free access to information, freedoms of thought and
association are not considered as child rights. As a first step to ensure child
rights, this misconception has to be wiped out from the minds of government
officials, NGO workers and intellectuals. Although misconception still
prevails, some awareness about children’s well-being has been shown by all
concerns. As a result, Shishu (children) Academy has been established, massive
schooling program has been introduced, NGOs have established specialized
schools for slum and working children, and a separate home for prostitutes’ children
is established.
In recent years concern for
disabled children has also come into forefront. NGOs rather than the government
seem to show greater interest about their well-being. All these activities are
insignificant compared to the needs. However, all activities related to
children are still centred on meeting the needs of children rather than
asserting their rights. Few programs that we know and see are primarily based
in towns and cities while the vast majority
of rural children are deprived of basic needs like proper nutrition, quality
education, parental emotional care
(which is very much needed for young children), and adequate medical
facilities. Few years’ back one UNICEF survey claimed that a significant
proportion of children of Bangladesh are growing as retarded adult.
Our life expectancy has gone as
high as 66.9 years (BBS, 2009), which means we are going to have a large number
of old aged people. Previously most families being rural based extended ones
many people in a family used to look after the older people. Also, in the past,
the life expectancy being short, only few people would live up to the old age.
The scenario is quite different today. With the control of epidemics, the
mortality has fallen significantly and consequently older people have
increased. Older people have many problems. In the absence of social security
system the overwhelming majority of them are dependent upon off springs or near
kin, many of whom may not be well off. They are also susceptible to chronic
illness and diseases. In other words, they need more medical care then younger
members of the family. We have not yet developed specialized medical care for
older people, for which significant numbers of geriatricians will be needed in
the near future. Therefore, considerable budget allocation should be
recommended for taking care of older people.
In the absence such resources our growing numbers of older people will
suffer.
4.7 Provide Employment Opportunity
Estimated civilian labour force
of both sexes aged 15 years and above in Bangladesh is about 51.7 million (BBS,
2007). There are very confusing statistics about the total percentage of
actively employed people of the country. Hence, we will not wrestle with these
figures rather we accept the fact that we have a large number of unemployed and
under employed people in the country. In recent years, non-vocational
unemployed educated youths have increased significantly for our wrong education
policy. However, about 60% of our labour force is engaged in agriculture,
forestry, and fishery sector followed by trade, hotel and restaurant (12%),
industry (8%), and services and others (5%). The most important point to note
here is that the industrial labour force is still very minimal, which indicates
that our meager investment in the industrial sector.
For sustainable development we
will have to redistribute labour force in different sector including agriculture,
manufacturing etc. This is also necessary for reducing our dependency upon
foreign manufactured goods. This is not easy because this will require capital
and technical know-how. Again technology that is to be used for it has to be
environment friendly otherwise its negative impact will be very costly for the
nation.
Despite all these limitations we
have to explore the possibilities of employment for our youths. One such area
is export of workers to foreign countries. Nearly 4-5 million Bangladeshi
workers are working now in different countries of the world. The remittances of
these workers are the major source of our national foreign currency but that
labours market shrinking fast due to recent restrictions impost by workers
importing countries. However, Government is still very active in sending more
workers to foreign countries. But this is not a permanent solution of
employment of our youths. We have to arrange employment for them at home.
There is no alternative to
industrialization but the question is what kind of industrialization should get
the priority. Our competition ability is still at a minimum level because of
absence of raw materials, capital, and lack of technical know-how. Our
industrialization should focus on agro industry for which we have a large
labour force and also a ready local market. Similar areas should also be
identified by the economists and environmentalists and put forward their
recommendations to the government. However, attention should be paid to labour
intensive rather than capital intensive industries.
4.8 Access to information and communication facilities
One of the biggest barriers of
communication is literacy. Print materials are no good to a large numbers of
adults, whose literacy rate is very low. However, recent revaluation in
telecommunication sector has increased the access of people to information.
Access of people to different services centres like hospital, fire service
station, police beat, etc. have increased due to infrastructure development in
rural areas. However, there is no reason
for complacent with these limited achievements as we still far behind the mid-level
developed countries like South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia. There should be
information centre both in urban rural areas so that people can have necessary
information about, health services, agriculture services. Police services,
legal services, and disaster and cyclones.
4.9 Marginalization
Nearly 40% poor of Bangladesh
live below poverty line. Although 1% of them are crossing the line, the
absolute numbers is still very big. The process of marginalization is still
continuing in rural area as more and more small farmers are becoming
landless. Many of them sell their lands
by wealthy land grabbers. In the urban areas marginal people are those who live
in slums. Their numbers are also increasing due to high rate of migration of
rural poor. Also, some lower middle class are sliding down to marginalized
category for lack of employment.
4.10 Cultural Diversity
People of different faiths, such
as Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and tribal religions live in the
country. Beside Bengalees there are many hill and plainland tribes who are
ethnically different from each other. They have their own cultural practices in
terms of food, housing, clothing, rituals, marriage patterns, etc. Although at
present all ethnic groups are living peacefully there were some commotions
between tribal and non-tribal people in the past.
5. STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF BANGLADESH
5.1 Provide Quality Health and Sanitation Services
- Ensure strong health education program to build capacity;
- Increase equal access to existing health services to all;
- Increase contraceptive prevalence rate to arrest population growth and demand minimization;
- Increase sanitation system and provide coverage to a wider number of people; and
- Make provisions so that everyone can have access to safe drinking water.
5.2 Shelters and Services
- Building multi-purpose shelters for natural disaster victims.
- Emergency supply of house building materials for the disaster victims.
- Low cost housing materials for the rural and urban poor.
- Shift industries to rural setting to reduce the demand of new houses and services.
- Reduce dependency on ground water by harvesting rainwater by excavating ponds, canals, creeks, streams, and rivers.
- Recycle water through treatment.
- Popularize biogas stove for reducing dependency upon fuel wood.
- Increasing efficiency of PDB to met the growing demand of electricity
5.3 Quality Education
- Ensuring universal education for all at least at primary and secondary levels
- Reducing gender parity at all educational levels
- Improving the quality of education in all types of education systems (Madrasha, English medium, and Bangla medium)
- Increasing the numbers of technical colleges and universities
5.4 Social Safety Net
- Stocking of food grain for distributing at a fair price during the crisis period.
- Expand financial support to old, widow, disabled, and sick.
- Ensure free and efficient medical services for all at government hospitals.
- Introduce health insurance for all employees of government, semigovernment organizations and private enterprises.
- Introduce compensation for health hazards during duties both in government and non-government organizations.
- Establish labour intensive industries to accommodate maximum numbers of workers.
- Introduce works programs during lean period of the year particularly in Monga prone areas.
5.5 Ensuring gender equity and empowerments
- Raising awareness among women about their rights
- Women empowerment
5.6 Provide special services to children, aged and disable people
- Enacting laws for child rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of thought, free excess of information and association.
- Expand the services like nutrition, education, medical care, and emotional support
- Strengthening existing government and NGOs programs that work for children.
- Expanding allowance, medical facilities and shelter for aged and disabled.
5.7 Create employment opportunities
- Vocational training of people for local and international employment.
- Diversifying agriculture production system and more scientific agricultural practices for increasing production, which in turn will generate more employment.
- Establish agro-based industries using local products.
- Investment in labour-intensive industries in order to reduce dependency of large numbers of workers on agriculture.
5.8 Ensure access to information
- Each government offices at Upazila, district, and metropolis should have an information booth about the services they provide to people.
- Local self-government offices and NGOs should have sources of information.
- People should have access to communication facilities to get the services.
5.9 Arrest marginalization of people
- Increase financial support and emergency relief
- Create job opportunity round the area.
- Protective laws for sharecroppers and lessee.
5.10 Ensure Cultural Diversity
- People of all faiths should be equal in the eyes of law.
- Ethnic minorities should not be discriminated in any sphere of society.
- Traditional tribal rules, rituals, practices must be respected and allowed to uphold by respective tribe.
6. CONCLUSION
There are many policies
formulated in the country to deal with above mentioned targets, such as health
and sanitation policies, education policy, laws regarding dowry and gender
equity, etc. But very few policies are properly implemented due to negligence
of policy executioners, political influence, inefficient officials, and
corruption. The last two governments introduced some social security programs
like old age pension, Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), Vulnerable Group Feeding
(VGF), disabled allowance, and freedom fighters’ allowances but the amount
allotted to these is too meager for a person or a family. However, despite its
meagerness we welcome the program towards social security system, which is so
much needed due to changing social condition of the country. Government also
started employment scheme under different projects, it also will contribute to
the social development.
Before under taking any program
we need to assess the actual condition of the situation, otherwise armchair
planning will end up in failure. Therefore, we need to build a database to know
the numbers of old, blind and disabled who live below poverty level and need
external support. There are however, some estimates about all this through very
small sample surveys, but these are not sufficient for making a comprehensive
plan. We think respective department of the government should have its own
database for planning and successful implementation of the program.
We strongly suggest that there
should be a centralized databank whose responsibility will be to collect data
from different sources and save them in Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Whosever needs data may ask first the data bank authority about its
availability. This is how time and energy will be saved and pragmatic program
planning possible.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Australian Urban and Regional
Development Review (1995), Places for Everyone: Social Equity in Australian
Cities and Regions, Canberra 1995.
Barry, John and E. Gene
Frankland (eds.) (2001), International Encyclopedia of Environmental
Politics, Routledge.
BBS, 2006. Bangladesh Economic
Review, 2006, Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, Dhaka
BBS, 2007. Bangladesh Economic
Review 2007, Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, Dhaka
BBS, 2008. Bangladesh Economic
Review 2008, Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, Dhaka
BBS, (2008) “Bangladesh Bureau
of Statistics (BBS)”, Statistical year Book of Bangladesh”, 2008.
BBS, 2009. Bangladesh
Statistical Pocket Book 2009, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Dhaka
Becker, Egon (1999), ‘Fostering
Transdisciplinary Research into Sustainability in an Age of Globalization: a
short political epilogue, in Becker, Egon and Thomas Jahn (eds.) (1999) Sustainability
and the Social Sciences: a cross-disciplinary approach to integrating
environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation, Zed Books,
London, UNESCO and ISOE, pp.1-22.
Becker, Egon, Thomas Jahn and
Immanuel Stiess, (1999) ‘Exploring uncommon ground: sustainability and the
social sciences, in Becker, Egon and Thomas Jahn (eds.) Sustainability and
the Social Sciences: a cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental
considerations into theoretical reorientation, Zed Books, London, UNESCO
and ISOE, pp.1-22.
Cheney, H, Nheu, N and Vecellio,
L, (2004) ‘Sustainability as social change: values and power in sustainability
discourse’ in Cheney, H, Katz, E and Solomon, F (eds.) (2004), Sustainability
and Social Science: Roundtable Proceedings, Institute for Sustainable Futures
and CSIRO Minerals, Melbourne, July 2004, pp. 225-246. Available at http://www.minerals.csiro.au/sd/pubs
Crabtree, L A (1999), Sustainability
as seen from a vegetable garden, Unpublished Honours thesis, Department of
Human Geography, Macquarie University, http://www.thirdangel.com/sustainability/honours/honours_index.html
Department of Agricultural
Extension, (2007). Disaster Risk Management in Agricultural Project, Supported
by Comprehensive Disaster Management Program (CDMP), UNDP.
Department of Environment,
Transport and the Regions (DETR) (2000) Local quality of life counts: a
handbook for a menu of local indicators of sustainable development, London,
DETR. Page numbers cited refer to the
PDF version available at: http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/indicators/local/index.htm
Department of the Environment
and Heritage, (2002) Are We Sustaining Australia: A Report Against Headline
Sustainability Indicators for Australia, Canberra, Australia. http://www.deh.gov.au/esd/national/indicators/report/index.html
Eichler, M, (1999),
‘Sustainability from a feminist sociological perspective: a framework for
disciplinary reorientation’, in Becker, E and Jahn, T (eds.) Sustainability
and the Social Sciences: a cross-disciplinary approach to integrating
environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation, Zed Books,
London and New York.
GoB (2005). National Adaptation
program of Action (NAPA), Final report; November 2005; Ministry of Environment
and Forest, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GoB) Dhaka.
Hamilton, C and Denniss, R
(2000), Tracking well-being in Australia: The Genuine Progress Indicator
2000, The Australia Institute Discussion Paper No. 35, December 2000.
Jones, S, Frost, G, Loftus, J
and van der Laan, S, (2005) Sustainability Reporting: practices, performance
and potential, report prepared for CPA Australia, Melbourne, July
2005.
Koning, Juliette, (2001),
‘Social sustainability in a globalizing world: context, theory and methodology
explored’, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, paper prepared for the UNESCO /
MOST meeting, 22-23 November 2001, The Hague, Netherlands. http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/globus/seminars/sem02.02.pdf
McManus, Phil (1996), ‘Contested
terrains: politics, stories and discourses of sustainability’, Environmental
Politics, Vol. 5, No.1, Spring 1996, pp.48-73. McKenzie, Stephen (2004), ‘Social
sustainability: towards some definitions’, Hawke Research Institute Working
Paper Series No 27, University of South Australia, Magill, South
Australia.
Paehlke, R (2001), Environmental
Politics, Sustainability and Social Science, Environmental Politics,
Vol. 10, No. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 1-22.
Porritt, Jonathon, (1998)
‘Foreword’, in Diane Warburton (ed.) Community and sustainable development:
participation in the future, Earthscan, London. Stren, Richard and Mario Polèse, (2000)
‘Understanding the new sociocultural dynamics of cities: comparative urban
policy in a global context’ in Mario Polèse and Richard Stren The Social
Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change,
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp. 3-38.
Robinson, J (2004), ‘Squaring
the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development’, Ecological
Economics 48 (2004) pp. 369-384.
Sutton, Philip, (2000), Sustainability:
what does it mean? Green Innovations Inc. http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/sustblty.htm#contents
Warburton, Diane (ed.) (1998) Community
and sustainable development: participation in the future, Earthscan,
London.
Watson, Don, (2004) Watson's
Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant & Management Jargon,
Random House Australia.
Western Australian Council of
Social Service Inc (2002), Submission to the State Sustainability Strategy
Consultation Paper, April 2002. Available at:
www.sustainability.dpc.wa.gov.au/ docs/submissions/WACOSS.pdf
World Commission on Environment
and Development (1987), Our common future, Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
