By placing Pakistan in MENAAP, the World Bank is giving institutional weight to this development path, one centred on migration, remittances, energy dependence, external finance and rentier capital. Pakistan’s reclassification is not Bangladesh’s crisis, but it is Bangladesh’s warning.
This piece talks about how bad loans, political patronage, and cosmetic accounting turned Bangladesh’s banks into a public crisis.
This first article in a three-part series argues that Bangladesh’s celebrated growth story was always more fragile than it looked. Now that growth is slowing and investment is yielding less, the hidden costs of that model are becoming harder to ignore.
This third article in a three-part series argues how wealth leaves the country, why the gains of growth narrow at the top, and what a fairer settlement would actually require.
This second article in a three-part series argues that bad loans, political patronage, and cosmetic accounting turned Bangladesh’s banks into a public crisis.