Building national resilience: An exciting imperative

WITH conflict, natural disaster and economic shocks dominating the headlines it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we live in a world of record high human development. Global per capita poverty, hunger, child and maternal mortality are all at historic lows, and continue to fall. And yet, our sense of unease with the refrain “everything is getting better” is not misplaced. Within the frame of aggregate gains is our recognition of the fragility of those gains.

Approximately 47 million people in Bangladesh live below the poverty line and an additional 28 million are just above it -- just a small shock could take these people back down. These 75 million, almost half the population, face a challenging and uncertain future with threats coming from different directions. Bangladesh is one of the world's most natural disaster prone countries. Economic shocks can come from rising commodity prices or a downturn in remittances. Both opportunities and threats can be amplified by globalisation effects. For example, RMG provides jobs to help families graduate from poverty but work conditions are often precarious, the jobs are beholden to a small number of dominant buyers, and competition from other supplier countries is real.The Human Development Report is UNDP's flagship publication and it has traditionally been at the cutting edge of academic thought. This year the HDR focuses on reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience. The report makes the case for enhancing “human resilience” by linking “human vulnerability” (i.e. the potential for erosion of people's capabilities and choices) with inequitable and/or unsustainable development. The report seeks to “improve understanding and raise awareness about how reducing vulnerability and building resilience are essential for sustainable human development.” Ensuring sustainability and people's ability to bounce back is at the heart of the challenge: I am confident this constitutes an incredibly relevant topic in the on-going intellectual review of Bangladesh's development choices.

The goal of development is to broaden people's choices and to ensure they are empowered with equal life chances. What are the critical elements towards that goal? Capabilities are built by people centred governance that is in touch with the needs and realities of local communities and that empowers those communities to achieve aspirations. Good governance (i.e., effective, responsive and accountable institutions) is instrumental in creating individual and collective resilience.

In this context, the HDR emphasises the need to adjust policies and social norms to systematically address structural vulnerability rooted in an individual's gender, ethnicity or social status. Since both poor and non-poor are affected by structural vulnerability, poverty alone doesn't explain it. For example, in Bangladesh, more people are malnourished than poor -- that is, some non-poor are malnourished and hence vulnerable. This suggests that non-poverty interventions can be an effective means of building resilience. We have seen how establishment of village courts in Bangladesh has empowered both poor and non-poor inhabitants of 350 Union Parishads by offering fast, quality access to justice. Also, changing social norms that made it possible for women to take up jobs in the garments industry has made millions of women less vulnerable to financial and social shocks.

The HDR also underscores the need to address “life cycle vulnerability.” For example, nutritional deficits during pregnancy or in early infancy can cause stunting or impaired mental development that leave an individual disadvantaged for life. Inadequate support to a young boy/girl for school-to-work transitions can have a lasting impact on the person's life-long earning potentials. Hence, investment in neonatal health and education can clearly save society costs and simultaneously improve resilience. One relevant example of what this means is universal social protection which, if properly designed and implemented, improves individual resilience and bolsters national resilience. The impact of good policy is clear: European countries with universal social protection schemes tackled the 2008 economic turmoil better than those with no such schemes. The exciting news here is that the government of Bangladesh is finalising a life-cycle based “National Social Security Strategy” guided by the vision of “an inclusive social security system for all Bangladeshis” -- a very timely step toward reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience.

The report identifies two very real challenges: the need for better management and provision of global public goods and the importance of better international governance. The report argues for “global coherence” on both of these challenges. The Iraq crisis forcing Bangladeshi migrants to return home prematurely and the rising sea level that threatens Bangladeshi coastal communities are two examples of how events beyond national borders have very real local impact. I believe that the ongoing work on developing a high quality, relevant post-2015 development framework constitutes a potential tool to promote coherence. Bangladesh is a leading voice in the post 2015 process, it is exciting work and incredibly relevant for all citizens.

The bottom line: the 2014 HDR records incremental improvements that move Bangladesh up one place in the rankings from 143 to 142 at a time when most south Asian countries' position remained unchanged. In fact, this year the HD Index value for Bangladesh registers an increase of 0.7% over last year. From this promising vantage point, Bangladesh is well positioned to consider the ideas in the HDR in strategic planning tools such as the upcoming seventh Five Year Plan. Bangladesh may want to prioritise (i) Prevention and mitigation of man-made and natural shocks; (ii) Promoting capabilities, e.g. universal provision of quality services and people centred governance; and (iii) expanding people's choices by eliminating discrimination and inequalities, enhancing social cohesion, and creating jobs especially for youth. Success in these areas will enable people to handle shocks better.

I sincerely hope that this latest HDR will encourage a vibrant development dialogue that leads to concrete actions that would further push Bangladesh to a new level of resilience. Allow me to conclude, emphatically: not only UNDP, but the entire UN system in Bangladesh, stands ready to support the actions required to effectively implement steps to reduce vulnerability and build resilience.

The writer is Resident Representative, UNDP, Bangladesh.