New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS) Bangladesh has made significant social and economic gains over the past 55 years but continues to struggle with weak institutional capacity for policymaking, a new report has said.
The report from Bangladesh-based The Daily Star said that the country has spent over five decades “struggling to move beyond Class 1” in policymaking and argued that frequent transfers of policymakers, short tenures and appointments of officials that often overlook sectoral expertise harm the sector.
Dr Syed Abdul Hamid, a professor at the Institute of Health Economics of the University of Dhaka, said that such practices in public administration undermine the ability to design and sustain long‑term reforms.
Rather than shortage of talent, a failure to preserve institutional memory and accumulate specialised knowledge is the failure of Bangladesh’s policy making, the report said.
Officials who lack prior experience in a sector spend their limited time learning basics rather than implementing reforms, but when experienced officials finally develop the necessary understanding, they are often reassigned or retire before meaningful reforms can take root.
“One critical aspect of governance remains underdeveloped: our capacity to formulate, implement, evaluate and improve public policies through strong institutions and consistent leadership,” the report noted.
Citing an example of how a digital public service gets affected by policymaking-related issues, the report said that if a new platform or approach is introduced with change in leadership, then public resources may be wasted on overlapping systems and repeated investments.
Good policymaking is a continuous cycle of learning and improvement, where “problems must be identified, evidence collected and analysed, stakeholders consulted, alternatives assessed, and financial and administrative feasibility examined.”
Hamid called for giving greater weight to relevant expertise in key appointments, reducing unnecessary transfers, ensuring reasonable minimum tenures, and documenting policy rationales and implementation records.
The report also urged greater coordination among ministries and agencies. “Universities, research institutions, professional bodies and independent experts should contribute more meaningfully to policy development and evaluation. Reliable data systems and mechanisms for sharing evidence must support this collaboration,” the report noted.
—IANS
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