COVID-19 is a global crisis of unprecedented scale and reach and the factors shaping how different countries have managed it are complex and many. The 2020-21 State of Governance (SOG) report by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) assesses the governance of COVID-19 in Bangladesh to document how policies were made and delivered, analyze the governance response of political and government institutions, and derive lessons from the ongoing pandemic to support stronger future crisis responses. It examines the health sector response, lockdown management and the relief program, community-level governance of the pandemic, the economic stimulus program, and the situation in the readymade garment (RMG) sector. A critical overarching lesson from this extensive study is that Bangladesh needs institutions that are strengthened by their encounters with crisis: given the range of global crises that Bangladesh is exposed to—climate change, food security, economic, health—its governance must build back better each time it faces such stressors if it is to protect or win further progress for its people. Bangladesh’s continued development success depends on learning how to turn crises into opportunities, turning its much-cited resilience into something far more durable and potent: a state of anti-fragility, in which governmental and social forces get ever better at identifying, tackling, and recovering from the multiple shocks that they continually confront. Building back better means enabling the roots of anti-fragility to take hold in public institutions and practices.
Authors: Hassan, Mirza; Hossain, Naomi; Islam, Sirajul; Hoque, Rafsanul; Khan, Insiya; Aziz, Syeda Salina; Nahreen, Avia; Hoque, Md. Mahan Ul ; Osmani, S. R.; Siddiquee, M. S. H.; Sultan, Maheen; Antara, Iffat Jahan; Zaman, Shahaduz; Hossain, Faruq; Matin, Imran
Type: Report
Year: 2021
