Bangladesh’ remarkable progress over the last 40 years in reducing poverty and improving lives can offer valuable lessons for achieving inclusive and sustainable development globally. Said Dr Mushtaque Chowdhury, Vice-Chair of BRAC, at an event in the Palace of Westminster hosted by the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Bangladesh and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Dr Chowdhury highlighted the vital contribution that the partnership between Bangladesh and the UK has made to Bangladesh graduating to lower middle-income status, reducing poverty, improving health services and education provision and modernising agriculture. Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of human development progress.

Dr Chowdhury said, “Collaboration between Bangladesh and the UK has helped to increase our understanding of how to break the cycle of extreme poverty. This learning around what works could make a significant contribution to the reduction of poverty in all of its forms globally.”

Other Bangladeshi organisations attending the UK meeting to share their knowledge of development progress and lessons for the wider region include: The Bangladesh Institute for Governance and Development, BRAC University, the James P Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University, the global health research institute icddr,b and Bangladesh’s Institute for Development Studies.