Photo: UN Women/Fahad Abdullah Kaizer licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Event

Governing Covid-19 in Bangladesh: realities and reflections to build forward better

Event details
When
Thu Sep 16, 2021 - Thu Sep 16, 2021
Time
15:00 - 16:30 (GMT+1)
Where
ZOOM
Register now

Covid-19 is a global shock, but its impact has been particularly profound in developing countries like Bangladesh. The pandemic has presented a stark “life vs livelihood” challenge to the policymakers in Bangladesh, where the public health system is weak, the economic state of the majority of citizens is precarious, and the social security system is underdeveloped. The governance of the pandemic in Bangladesh, like elsewhere, has deeply shaped the health and livelihoods outcomes of the citizens. Thus, understanding how the pandemic has been governed in the country and why can provide useful insights for the better governance of similar shocks in the future.

The State of Governance (SoG) report is a flagship publication of the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University. This year’s SoG report, authored in research partnership with the Accountability Research Centre of American University, assessed the COVID-19 governance in Bangladesh during the first year of the pandemic—analysing how the government responded to the crisis and why, identifying the challenges, and based on the analysis, providing constructive recommendations at policy and programmatic levels. The report identified gaps in critical governance areas including healthcare, social protection, stimulus packages, and lockdown management, and explored these issues from a political economy angle. The study is part of the Covid Collective based at the Institute of Development Studies, which brings together the expertise of UK and Southern-based research partner organisations and offers rapid social science research response to inform decision-making on some of the most pressing COVID-19 related development challenges.

BIGD & Covid Collective jointly invites you to join our webinar: Governing COVID-19 in Bangladesh: Realities and Reflections to Build Forward Better on Thursday, 16 September 2021 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm (GMT+1) / 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm (GMT+6). In this webinar, the researchers—Dr Mirza M. Hassan, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Governance and Politics Cluster, BIGD, and Dr Naomi Hossain, Research Professor, Accountability Research Center, American University—will present the key insights from the report.

This will be followed by comments from our distinguished discussants: Professor Habibiul Haque Khondker, Professor of Social Sciences at Zayed University; Professor Dina M Siddiqi, Clinical Associate Professor at New York University; Professor Mushtaq Husain Khan, Professor of Economics at SOAS University of London, and Executive Director of Anti-Corruption Evidence Research Consortium; and Dr. Shandana Khan Mohmand, Research Fellow and Cluster Leader at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

With in-depth, mixed-method, comprehensive research across all major dimensions of Covid management, our research provides critical insights on governance challenges in developing countries in managing the pandemic. It also provides a governance analysis framework in the context of the dominant party system—a phenomenon found in many developing countries. We believe that the international research and practitioner community working at the nexus of governance and development would find the work useful.

Please register early and book your calendars for this exciting online event. We eagerly look forward to your participation.

You can also watch the webinar LIVE from the BIGD Facebook page