Bangladesh’s growth-governance gap a cautionary tale, economists warn

Bangladesh’s decades of strong economic growth came at a cost of overlooked governance failures that eventually contributed to political upheaval, economists warned at the opening session of the 9th SANEM Annual Economists Conference on Friday night.Speaking through an online keynote address session, economists Shanta Devarajan, Professor, Georgetown University and Kunal Sen, Director, The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) cautioned that rapid economic growth, when it masks underlying governance weaknesses, ultimately breeds political instability, declining investment and economic slowdown.In his keynote titled ‘The Costs of Denial,’ Devarajan argued that many developing countries including Bangladesh experienced robust growth during 2000-2015, which generated optimism and reduced poverty but also allowed governments and development partners to ignore deep-rooted problems such as corruption and weak institutions.He noted that Bangladesh quadrupled its GDP per capita since 1990 and recorded strong manufacturing growth, yet governance remained persistently weak. The country was earlier ...

• 18 Apr 2026