Charting a path forward for Bangladesh’s development
Bangladesh has established some of the most ambitious economic development goals in the world — hoping to attain upper middle-income status by 2031. What are the challenges that Bangladesh faces in achieving these development goals, and how can the country maintain its impressive economic track record to close the growth gap?
These are the pressing questions that our scholars at the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia work every day to answer. Explore the events, research, and commentary below to learn more about our work.
Policy Brief
This policy brief explores the macroeconomic challenges posed by the politcal upheaval of July-August 2025 and explains that with serious and sustained reform, the country can overcome these hurdles and pursue inclusive growth and development.
Occasional Paper
This policy paper aims to provide an analysis of the current state of the solar power industry in Bangladesh, identifying the gaps and risks associated with the implementation of the government’s renewable energy goals.
Policy Brief
The challenge in this policy note is to look beyond the transitory factors in Bangladesh that have moved relative prices up (or down) to identify the longer-term factors that generate and sustain general price increases and to explain why those factors endure.
Policy Brief
The tax-to-GDP ratio in Bangladesh has been exceptionally low, both absolutely and relative to the nation’s peers, for the last five decades. An excellent starting point for reform would be the World Bank’s recent proposals for enhanced revenue mobilization, which build upon the long-delayed reforms.
Policy Brief
This policy note discusses the macroeconomic difficulties in Bangladesh created by the counterproductive manipulation of the exchange rate from the mid-2000s and suggests potential remedies.
Policy Brief
The study aimed to determine if Bangladesh’s decades-long high-level performance contradicted the widely accepted “stylized fact” among development specialists that “institutions matter.”
Policy Brief
This policy brief focuses on improving tax implementation, with the hope that the impact of administrative reforms will be accelerated and amplified if undertaken simultaneously with fundamental tax policy reform.
Feature
The Bangladesh Public Administration Project’s 2024 pedagogy fellows use the case method to equip the next generation of civil servants to meet Bangladesh’s development goals.
Feature
This past semester, the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia engaged in conversations and research on topics ranging from Indonesia’s election to US-Taiwan relations with the goal of continuing to develop policy solutions to the region’s most pressing concerns.
Feature
Speaking at Harvard Kennedy School, Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen MC/MPA 1979 noted that the country plans to be poverty free by 2041. Yet challenges—like climate change and rising fuel costs—loom large.