BIGD Day Conference 2026: Our Problems, Our Resources, Our Solutions
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July 2, 2026 9:00 am
- 5:30 pm
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BRAC Centre
This year, BIGD is celebrating its 13th anniversary with the BIGD Day Conference 2026. In an era of global uncertainty, aid retrenchment, and a shifting geopolitical order, this year’s conference asked a defining question: how does a country like Bangladesh look within—to its local resources, community networks, and hard-won institutional knowledge—to address its own development challenges?
The conference was centered around the idea that Bangladesh’s development challenges are not problems awaiting outside answers, but opportunities to build on what the country already knows and who it already is. Throughout the day’s sessions, BIGD drew on its own research and field experience to explore what local solutions look like in practice and what it would take to fund, study, and scale them.
Session 1 | Setting the Stage
The day opened with the inaugural BIGD Day Lecture 2026, delivered by Professor Abed Chaudhury (Professorial Fellow, BIGD). Professor Chaudhury is a scientist with over four decades of experience in genetics, agriculture, and climate mitigation. He situated Bangladesh’s development challenges within the broader global context, asking what it means to lead with local knowledge, resources, and solutions at a time when the assumptions that guided development thinking for decades are being questioned.
Session 2 | Food and Energy Security
The first, by Dr. Rohini Kamal (Head of the Environment and Climate Change Cluster, BIGD), offered a quick look at agrivoltaics—a model that generates solar power and grows crops on the same land. As Bangladesh struggles to meet its renewable energy targets amid rising fuel prices and competing pressures for land, agrivoltaics points to a way of building food and energy systems that can withstand both local and global shocks. Dr. Kamal highlighted BIGD-led pilots across three diverse agro-ecological zones measuring the yield impact and net profit for a range of crops.
The second presentation, by Dr. Proloy Barua (Research Fellow, BIGD), turned to rapid urbanization and the corresponding challenge of solid waste management. He spoke about BIGD’s work in Cox’s Bazar, where a waste-to-resource model that promotes household waste segregation, improved collection, and resource recovery through recycling is being tested. Dr. Barua also spoke about BIGD’s work on Black Soldier Fly (BSF) technologies, in which organic waste is converted into high-protein larvae feed. Dr. Barua and Dr. Kamal also connected this to BIGD’s agrivoltaics project in Teknaf, which combines solar energy generation with poultry rearing on the same land.
The presentations were followed by a panel moderated by Dr. Munshi Sulaiman (Research Director, BIGD), featuring Sumaiya T. Ahmed (Head of Sustainability, PRAN-RFL Group), Faisal Rabbi (Energy Specialist, The World Bank Group), Hasan Mehedi (Chief Executive, Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network), and Abdullah Al Aziz (Lead, Environment, Health, Safety & Administration, Joules Power Limited).
Session 3 | Childcare and Livelihoods
For millions of low-income working mothers—including those who power the garment industry—the absence of affordable, quality childcare is a daily crisis and a lasting barrier to employment. As urbanization accelerates and more women enter the labor force, the gap is only widening. This session drew on BIGD’s research on BRAC’s home-based childcare pilot in low-income urban neighbourhoods, where local women are trained to run play-based childcare from their own homes.
Presentations by Dr. Shaila Ahmed (Head of the Gender and Social Development Cluster, BIGD) and Areefa Zafar (Senior Program Manager and Faculty Member, BRAC IED) examined two questions central to scalability: does quality childcare improve mothers’ employment and well-being, and can care itself become a viable livelihood for the women who provide it? Together, they positioned childcare as a core pillar of Bangladesh’s care economy connecting early childhood development, women’s economic empowerment, and workers’ rights.
The presentations were followed by a panel, also moderated by Dr. Shaila Ahmed, featuring Ferdousi Khanom (Senior Lecturer & ECD Academic Lead, BRAC IED), Suraiya Haque (Founder and Executive Director, Phulki), and Tanzina Quddus Dina (Consultant, ECD and Childcare Focal, Social Policy, World Bank).
Session 4 | The Investment Challenge
With aid shrinking and external financing no longer guaranteed, the closing session turned to the hardest question raised by the day: who pays for these local solutions? The world that funded Bangladesh’s development story for decades is changing. This session concentrated on what it would take to fund community-rooted approaches differently—drawing on new partnerships between private enterprise, social investment, and homegrown capital. What would a funding ecosystem that backs local solutions actually look like?
Moderated by Mafruza Khan (Philanthropy & Social Sector Strategist & Collaborator), the panel featured Shamira Mostafa (Associate Director, Risk Management and Research & Evaluation, SAJIDA Foundation), Munzarin Zaman (Director, Fakir Apparels Ltd.), Shams Mahmud (Managing Director, Shasha Denims and Shasha Textiles Ltd.), and Ariful Islam (Treasurer, BRAC University).
