Growth Must Translate Into Wellbeing: Speakers At Bangladesh Research Symposium

🌏 Bangladesh's economic progress must be judged by its impact on people's lives, speakers said at the Syed Humayun Kabir Memorial Research Symposium 2026, calling for evidence-based policy, stronger public institutions and greater attention to inequality. The symposium — organised by SAJIDA Foundation in partnership with Banglar Pathshala Foundation — brought together researchers, policymakers, academics and development practitioners to consider how research can inform programmes and national policy.

📊 Delivering the keynote address virtually, internationally acclaimed economist Professor Kaushik Basu said Bangladesh could take a leading role among emerging economies by strengthening fairness, justice, the rule of law and democratic institutions. "GDP is not the only indicator; the real question is how progress translates into wellbeing," said Professor Basu, a professor of economics at Cornell University and former Chief Economist of the World Bank. He also warned that the rise of artificial intelligence could create new forms of inequality, making the question of who benefits from progress more urgent.

🏛 Symposium Theme: Justice, Capabilities And Wellbeing

The daylong symposium was centred on the theme "Justice, Capabilities and Wellbeing: Rethinking Human Development for a More Just Bangladesh." Inspired by Professor Amartya Sen's Capability Approach, the symposium examined health and livelihoods, urban resilience, climate adaptation, institutional quality and governance. The Capability Approach — developed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen — evaluates development not merely by income growth but by the expansion of people's capabilities: their freedom to lead lives they have reason to value. For Bangladesh, this framework is particularly relevant given the country's strong GDP growth alongside persistent inequality, weak institutional quality and uneven social development.

📜 Key Speakers And Their Messages

SAJIDA Foundation Chairman Farooq Sobhan stressed the importance of sustaining the organisation's founding values. "Institutions earn public trust through leadership, accountability, and a system built on merit, driven by results," he said. Former finance minister M Syeduzzaman said improving public education and healthcare would require stronger government revenue. "We need a better tax-to-GDP ratio if government services are to improve," he said. The former finance minister's reference to Bangladesh's low tax-to-GDP ratio — among the lowest in the world at approximately 8-9% — connects the symposium's wellbeing agenda to the structural fiscal constraint that limits government investment in education, healthcare and social protection.

• 📜 Keynote: Professor Kaushik Basu (Cornell University, former World Bank Chief Economist)
• 🏛 Organiser: SAJIDA Foundation (partnership with Banglar Pathshala Foundation)
• 📍 Venue: Dhaka Sheraton
• 📜 Theme: Justice, Capabilities and Wellbeing
• 📜 Framework: Amartya Sen's Capability Approach
• 📜 Chairman: Farooq Sobhan (SAJIDA Foundation)
• 📜 CEO: Zahida Fizza Kabir (SAJIDA Foundation)
• 📜> Former Finance Minister: M Syeduzzaman

📜 CEO's Closing Remarks: Questions That Guide Action

In her closing remarks, SAJIDA Foundation CEO Zahida Fizza Kabir said the discussions raised questions that would guide the organisation's work. "How do we translate economic growth into wellbeing? Is inequality rising even as we grow?" she asked. She said SAJIDA would draw on the symposium's insights as it works to strengthen its systems and carry its founder's values forward. Dr Sajeda Amin, Sociologist and Demographer and Senior Research Advisor at SAJIDA Foundation, underscored the need to connect research with action. "Doing good research is important, but communicating the research is equally, if not more, important," she said.

🌏 Strategic Context: Bangladesh's Development Paradox

For Bangladesh's broader development trajectory, the symposium's theme addresses the country's most fundamental paradox: sustained GDP growth (averaging 6%+ over the past decade) has not been accompanied by proportionate improvements in human development indicators, institutional quality or income equality. The gap between GDP growth and wellbeing — highlighted by Professor Basu's keynote — reflects structural issues including the low tax-to-GDP ratio (limiting public investment in education and healthcare), weak institutional governance (constraining the delivery of public services) and rising inequality (concentrating the benefits of growth among a small segment of the population).

The symposium's focus on the Capability Approach provides a framework for evaluating Bangladesh's development progress through a lens that goes beyond GDP — measuring whether growth has expanded people's capabilities to access education, healthcare, economic opportunity and political participation. For a country preparing to graduate from LDC status in November 2026, this framework is particularly relevant: LDC graduation will be measured by GDP per capita, human asset index and economic vulnerability index — but the Capability Approach asks the more fundamental question of whether these metrics translate into improved lives for ordinary Bangladeshis.

The coming months will reveal whether the symposium's insights translate into concrete policy recommendations that Bangladesh's government and development partners can act upon — or whether the discussions remain in the realm of academic discourse without influencing the practical policy decisions that shape the relationship between economic growth and human wellbeing in Bangladesh.