Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh Economists’ Forum (BEF) jointly organized a workshop titled “Reflections on the First BEF Conference: Challenges Facing Economic Research in Bangladesh”. AHM Mustafa Kamal, minister for Planning, was the chief guest at the conference, Prof. Nurul Islam, deputy chairman of the first Planning Commission, read out the key note speech with M. Syeduzzaman, former finance minister, in the chair.
As a sequel to the first BEF conference, the Governor in his opening remarks pointed out the importance of policy formulation and successful implementation of inclusive development initiatives by public institutions highlighting the need of adequate base of good quality research and analytical works.
He said over the recent years Bangladesh Bank has vigorously pursued strengthening of its in-house capabilities for surveys, research and analysis with new incentive structures including extensive higher training opportunities and higher weightage on publications for career advancement and so forth.
Besides partnering and liaising with local think tanks and universities, BB has also been inducting NRB experts from global organizations and foreign universities, to strengthen the analytical underpinnings of the various policy initiatives.
Prof. Nurul Islam in his keynote speech identified and explained major obstacles and bottlenecks in conducting Economic Research in Bangladesh. He also made a comparative analysis of various methods of economic research in different parts of the globe.
The keynote speech was followed by an open discussion and this session was conducted by M. Sayeduzzaman. Many issues raised by the discussants such as identification of right research initiatives and incentives provided to the researchers, quality of reaserch, data integrity.
After a long discussion on various issues the chair summarized all the ideas and answered the selected questions one by one. Prof Nurul Islam advised the organizers particularly BEF to prioriotize on the following issues:
1. Create database of the research institutions in Bangladesh
2. Categorize the research works of last few years
3. Create a database of workshops along with list of participants
AHM Mustafa Kamal, minister for planning, highlighted government’s different initiatives to achieve the MDG goals and mentioned that Bangladesh is doing well in many social develioment indicators in comparing to neighbouring countries. He also encouraged the young researchers to conduct researches on different issues of Bangladesh economy and mentioned that Government of Bangladesh has already started providing incentives to researchers and it will increase gradually. He committed support for centers of excellences and more research projects. He was also upbeat on the accelerated growth with equity in the coming days.
Former president of Bangladesh Economic Association Dr. Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir reiterated the importance of building centre of excellence for economic research in the country and suggested to restructutring of BIDS. – Bangladesh Bank press release
