Inclusive business from bean to brew
What do millions of people around the world enjoy every day at home and in the office, with their friends and their colleagues?
Coffee, of course! Coffee has become such a staple of modern life that most of us can’t imagine our day without it. Worldwide, we drink over 500 billion cups of coffee every year, with 90% grown in developing countries where over 25 million people earn their livelihoods from it. With the average price of a latte costing more than a fast food meal, coffee retailers seem to make large profits from coffee sales. But in a competitive market dominated by large traders, it can be hard for small coffee growers to secure a fair price for their product.
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Political Islam in Bangladeshi democracy
Recently Bangladesh was side-tracked from an electoral democracy. Earlier this year, the ruling party Awami League formed government after a one-sided election. Bangladesh’s major opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), boycotted the election on the grounds that it was not taking place under a neutral caretaker government and that elections held under partisan caretaker governments would not be fair.
Since the early 1990s Bangladeshi political parties had agreed to hold national elections under non-partisan, neutral caretaker governments after the collapse of the Ershad regime and the coming of multiparty democracy. The 2014 election marked a sharp break with this tradition.
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War on Yunus and US
When seemingly unending political street-battles gripped Bangladesh in late 2006, the United Nations pushed the country’s military in a circuitous way to take over the administration, brazenly violating its own charter that bars the world institution from interfering in any member state’s internal affairs.
The UN coerced the reluctant Bangalee generals by threatening them with the loss of their participation in international peacekeeping jobs, which are highly prized by Bangladesh’s armed forces. On 11 January 2007, the military grudgingly agreed to rule the country from behind the scenes and created a facade of a civilian administration with an ailing president and a rubber-stamp council of advisers, who acted as cabinet ministers. This unprecedented political posture was dubbed as ...
Bangladesh makes a difficult decision on war crimes
The crimes committed during the war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971 were truly horrific. Three million people are believed to have lost their lives, 200,000 women are said to have been raped and some 10 million people fled to India. The international community did next to nothing to stop the fighting and the US Administration under President Richard Nixon even backed Pakistan, despite the blatant violations of human rights it committed against its opponents in former East Pakistan.
These events belong without doubt to the darkest moments of South Asia's history. But as if that was not enough the legal process of establishing the responsibility of these crimes came to a halt in 1975 when the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated. At such times de...
A peek into Bangladesh’s new aid platform
In the previous fiscal year ending June 2014, Bangladesh received more than $700 million in aid from its development partners.
But that could’ve been more, if donors were able to meet their $5.35 billion total planned disbursements, according to the country’s newly launched aid database, which further reveals that while grants comprised the majority of disbursements last year, loans now account for the bulk of current aid spending.
But just how accurate is this data?
A government official involved in the management of the Aid Information Management System told Devex the current information in the database actually came from donors themselves. Up to 17 of Bangladesh’s development partners have agreed to manually enter data into the system, which then automatically generates that...
From development information to a data revolution
True development geeks will know that Oct. 24 is World Development Information Day.
Since 1972 the United Nations has been urging us all to raise awareness of development challenges. Four decades on and after a call for a “data revolution” in development by the U.N. High-Level Panel on Post-2015 and the creation of an Independent Expert Advisory Group to lead this revolution, the issue of development information is squarely back on the agenda. But over these years, a very important transformation has taken place. In 1972, the U.N. General Assembly felt “improving the dissemination of information and the mobilization of public opinion, particularly among young people, would lead to greater awareness of the problems of development.” [caption id="...
