Economists at a seminar in the capital on Thursday stressed the urgent need for a policy shift to decentralise Bangladesh’s Dhaka-centric urbanisation.
“While urbanisation had long been a driver of growth, the current Dhaka-centric pattern was proving unsustainable,” Policy Research Institute Director Ahmad Ahsan said at the seminar organised by PRI.
Ahsan presented a keynote “Urbanisation and Bangladesh’s Development: Selected Findings from BIDS-PRI Research” at the seminar.
He explained that excessive concentration of people and economic activity in Dhaka was leading to significant economic losses. “Excessive concentration in the capital—together with congestion, pollution, and diversion of resources from other urban centres—was sharply hampering development, slowing job creation, reducing industrial employment, and causing economic losses estimated at 6% to 10% of the GDP,” Ahsan said.
Ahsan emphasised that the focus on Dhaka was undermining long-term growth, as relocation efforts were bypassing secondary cities and shifting to smaller towns and rural areas, further weakening urbanisation benefits.
He also pointed to the poor state of urban services like water supply, sanitation, and health as major constraints. “The poor state of urban services was cited as a central constraint, with Gazipur highlighted as an example of industrial dynamism coexisting with poor welfare for workers,” he noted.
PRI Executive Director Khurshid Alam, who chaired the seminar, discussed the challenges of Dhaka’s unplanned growth.
Khurshid Alam said Dhaka’s growth has been unplanned and reactive, with policies constantly trying to catch up with realities.
He noted that this concentration of resources in Dhaka had led to reluctance among citizens and institutions to move elsewhere. The concentration of facilities in Dhaka has made both citizens and institutions reluctant to relocate, Alam added.
Power and Participation Research Centre Executive Chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman called for urgent urban research.
“Just as villages disappeared from researchers’ focus in the 2000s, cities now risk similar neglect,” Rahman said. He emphasized the need for specialized skills to manage urban growth effectively, stating, “Managing cities requires specialized skills, which are currently missing at all governance levels and must be urgently developed.”
BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) Executive Director Imran Matin echoed Ahsan’s call for better data, urging the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to lead in producing disaggregated datasets. “BBS should take the lead in producing disaggregated datasets, which are rarely available,” Matin said.
PRI Principal Economist Ashikur Rahman discussed institutional challenges hindering urban development, warning that without institutional changes, “planned urbanization and decentralization will remain orphan agendas.”
