BIDS - Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies BSMMU - Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University BTCL - Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited CAMS - Central Aid Management System. MoHFW - Ministry of Health and Family Welfare MoLE - Ministry of Labor and Employment MoRA - Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Introduction
Why the Governance of COVID-19 Matters for Bangladesh
- About This Report
2 economic stimulus programme, the situation in the ready-made garments sector (RMG) and the governance of the pandemic at the community level. The effectiveness of the pandemic response in saving lives and livelihoods will most likely erode the government's legitimacy among the population.
Background and Rationale
- COVID-19 Stress-Tested the World’s Health, Social, Economic, and Political
- Governance Shapes COVID-19 Outcomes: The Global Evidence
- Governing the Pandemic in Bangladesh
In India, COVID-19 has risen aggressively, partly due to the relaxation on mass gatherings, including election rallies (Bali & Taneja, 2021). COVID-19 was an unparalleled, massive exogenous shock to the political, social and economic order of the country.
Findings
17 growth orientation was detrimental to the people and that the rationale for this bias lies in the realm of the political economy of government. A systematic COVID-19 test in Korail - the largest informal settlement in Bangladesh - found a lower infection rate than elsewhere in the city.
Broader Implications
- Beyond Resilience: Building Antifragile Institutions
- What Political Dominance Means for Pandemic Management
The obvious implication of the ruling Awami League's political dominance is that the prospect of democratic electoral competition does not act as pressure on the government to do well in handling the pandemic. Similarly, Bangladesh's Awami League party structures lack the authority and discipline of the CCP; the government has not been successful in providing and enforcing coordinated and coherent policies driven by centralized policy logic.
Recommendations
- Build on the Country’s Strengths
- Plug the Gaps
- Practice 21 st Century Statecraft to Strengthen Institutions
The government must be able to rely on the social protection system to deter people from doing so. The government should build on Bangladesh's long and successful history of state-society partnerships and review its approach to non-state actors.
Governance of COVID-19 in Bangladesh: The Political Economy of Pandemic
Introduction
Again, as in many other countries, strong and decisive leadership in managing the pandemic was lacking – the response was slow and overly bureaucratic. The government moved quickly to develop a stimulus package to protect the country from the economic shocks of COVID-19.
Governing COVID-19: A Framework for Analysis
- State Capacity in Relation to COVID-19 Management
- Political Commitment to COVID-19 Management
- The Political Economy of COVID-19 in Bangladesh
How state capacity and political commitment have played out in dealing with COVID-19 in Bangladesh has depended on three salient aspects of the political economy of Bangladesh. Flow legitimacy is conditioned by the quality of the internal governance of state institutions and political decision-making and.
Citizen Perspectives on the Governance of COVID-19: Findings from a National Survey in
- Overall Performance
- Government Health Interventions
- Enforcing Public Health Measures: The Experience of Lockdown
- Protecting Livelihoods: The Relief Program
How has the COVID-19 shock affected the regime's legitimacy or citizens' trust in the regime. When asked if the lockdown was strictly enforced in their areas, a majority of respondents (57%) thought that lockdown was strictly enforced, while most of the rest thought it was enforced in a relaxed or partially relaxed manner (see Figure 15). .
Assessing the Political Economy of COVID-19 Governance in Bangladesh
Given the regime's high output legitimacy (the socio-political-economic order is robust), what would. The state's low institutional capacity to manage health was evident in the testing regime.
Health Sector Governance During COVID-19: Capacity, Preparedness, and
Pre-existing Pandemic Response Capacities
- Governance of Infectious Disease in Bangladesh
- Current Policy Framework
- Health Emergency Preparedness Capacity
54 districts, while the Control Room of Civil Surgeons in the district is responsible for reports from upazilas (MHFW, 2010). Public-NGO collaboration has been very successful in the case of the National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP). This section will examine how health emergencies feature in wider disaster management policy and what preparedness actions the government had taken prior to COVID-19 to address any impending health emergency at the national level.
Assessment of Governance During COVID-19
- Effectiveness of COVID-19 Management
- Government Capacity
When migrants were returning from abroad in the early days of the crisis, there was a lack of adequate screening mechanisms at airports to detect patients with COVID-19 and contain transmission. Many of the other lands and ports in the country could not benefit from scanners during that time (Sujan & Habib, 2020). The IEDCR was put in charge of coordinating the testing, but later, the role was transferred to the DGHS amid the COVID-19 crisis (New Age, 2020b).
Accountability and Governance of COVID-19 Policies
- Accountability
- Corruption
In the nationwide BIGD survey conducted in early 2021, almost all respondents were aware of the COVID-19 outbreak, and an overwhelming majority could identify the right steps to take to prevent COVID-19 infection (see Figure 24). This almost universal awareness of the outbreak and of practices to prevent its spread can be attributed to the government's widespread media campaign, as 88%. Two-thirds of the country's private clinics and diagnostic centers (more than 15,000) have been operating without any valid license since 2018.
The Second Wave: 2021
Despite the large financial resources involved, government procurement rules were not followed in obtaining approval from the concerned authorities. At the time, an inquiry committee had been set up to investigate the details of the tender. The committee found that the purchases were made under emergency conditions and procurement rules were not adhered to during the purchase (Islam, 2021a).
COVID-19 Lockdown in Bangladesh: A Governance Perspective
Introduction: Context, Study Questions, and Methodology
June 2020 An eight-member public health coordination group at the national level, i.e., one member for each of the eight divisions of Bangladesh, has been formed by the MHFW to coordinate the COVID-19 control activities at the divisional level. An additional COVID-19 management committee was formed on June 30 under the Health Service Division (HSD), which functioned independently of the DGHS and followed the Prime Minister's directives. Low PPE reserves, given the country's large population, attracted media attention following the discovery of the first case of COVID-19 on March 8, 2020.
The Scale of the Lockdown and Its Appropriateness in Bangladesh
84 The nationwide survey conducted by BIGD reveals how the public perceived the severity of the lockdown in their communities. Of the respondents surveyed, the majority (57%) reported that they experienced a strict lockdown throughout the period in their locality, compared to 14% of respondents who experienced a relaxed lockdown from the beginning (see Figure 29). All the decisions raise questions about the appropriateness and effectiveness of the government's approach to lockdowns.
Lockdown Management: Declaration, Enforcement, and Withdrawal
- Lockdown Policies and Decisions
- Agency and Actors in Lockdown Management
- Lockdown Measures and Their Consequences
- Coordination of Lockdown Measures
Thus, before announcing the nationwide lockdown at the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on 19 March 2020, the Prime Minister gave instructions on ways to slow the spread of the virus, including suspending non-essential meetings except for the Cabinet and the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) meetings. ("Fighting the coronavirus outbreak", 2020). In addition to government agencies, volunteers from local government and community organizations helped enforce government directives locally (Ali et al., 2020). The police were active in the capital during the first days of the quarantine.
Why Was the Lockdown Withdrawn Despite Rising Trends of Coronavirus Infection?
A joint study carried out in 2020 by BIGD and the Power and Participation Research Center (PPRC) shows that 20.5% of the population is officially recognized as poor, and an additional 21.7% are classified as "new poor " emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (PPRC . & BIGD, 2021). Thirty-six percent and 20% of the community's poor and illiterate people, respectively, were the two major groups who did not want to follow containment orders, respondents said. Biswas, Huq and Afiaz (2020) found that a certain part of the population is more likely to be locked down due to the lack of income opportunities.
Restrictive Measures to Curb the Second Wave of Virus Infection in 2021
There has been talk of educational institutions reopening from February or March ("Educational institutions likely to reopen in March," 2021; "Schools may reopen in February," 2021). As such, the police introduced a "movement pass" to help people travel as needed ("Bangladesh Enforces Stricter Covid-19 . Lockdown," 2021; "How to Register for Movement Pass," 2021). 106 Figure 38: Problems from the first locking phase that were learned and not in the second.
Wrapping Up
Successes in keeping the spread of the virus under control gave the government a moral legitimacy to continue its populist stance, even ignoring the experts' suggestions on many occasions. The government did not listen to the experts' suggestion to shut down the cattle markets in Dhaka before Eid-ul-Adha. Here, the experts' proposals can be argued as normative, while the government took a more pragmatic stance in dealing with COVID-19.
Achievements and Challenges in the COVID-19 Relief Program
Legal Framework for Government Relief Distribution
Over the years, the framework for disaster management has shifted from a reactive to a proactive approach. It now includes Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Emergency Response Management (ERM) programs based on the Disaster Management Act 2012, the National Disaster Management Policy 2015 and the National Plan for Disaster Management 2016-2020. The national plan for disaster management 2016-2020 also contains the values for disaster management that the ministry envisions.
Governance in Relief Distribution During COVID-19
- Government Relief Framework for COVID-19
- COVID-19 Relief Governance: Reality Check from the Field
In rural and urban areas, many local administrations issued public service announcements ("miking") - the use of amplified portable sound systems - to spread awareness of the health and safety measures regarding the Coronavirus. Some delivered the relief at the recipients' doorsteps, and some did it in the middle of the night. Data show that the local government, the local administration and the ruling political party leaders played vital roles in the government's aid distribution process.
Role of NGOs in Relief Response During COVID-19
- Lack of Flexibility in the Budget Provision and Small Contingency Fund
- Capacity, Commitment, and Leadership Matters for NGO's Relief Responses
- Government-NGO Coordination Was Weak and Existed Only on Paper
The government wants to minimize the manual process of corruption in the aid operation by introducing a digital money transfer system. Small, local NGOs and prominent international organizations alike struggled to start any food or cash assistance programs from existing program budgets due to the lack of contingency funds in the budget line. 34;At the beginning of the pandemic, we could provide food relief to some people only with the contribution of the staff, but this was like a drop of water in the ocean.
Relief Governance in the Second Wave of Lockdown: Lessons Learned
In addition, NGOs must focus on their capacity and commitment to effectively engage with government in future emergencies such as COVID-19. The government was also unable to finalize another confirmed list of 5 million people for cash assistance and then settled for 3.6 million people. It could be argued that it was not publicized enough; but it shows the government's ability to change.
Future Directions
Growth orientation refers to the presence of programs whose direct impact would be on reviving economic growth through support to business. In this direction, any impact on distressed households would be indirect – insofar as a revival of growth can be expected to also lead to a revival of livelihoods. Our analysis shows that the economic support package designed and implemented by the government of Bangladesh had a strong growth orientation, while the protection orientation was relatively neglected.
The Economic Support Program: Size, Characteristics, and Impact
- An Overview
- A Brief Description of the Support Package
- Analysis of the Economic Support Package
- The Impact of the Package on the Poor
On April 5, 2020, a special support package worth BDT 200 billion was announced for the entrepreneurs of small, micro, small and medium enterprises severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government's budgetary burden consists of three components: (i) various subsidy programs, including the interest subsidy provided by the government to the working capital loan schemes disbursed through the banks; (ii) the scheme for paying wages to the workers of the export-oriented garment industry, which costs BDT 50 billion; and (iii) most of the social. Some official documents clearly recognize this growth-oriented focus of the support program.
The Choice of Policy Package and the Quest for Political Legitimacy
- The Quest for Political Legitimacy
- The Logic of the Policy Package in the Light of the Imperative of Political Legitimacy
On the one hand, the closure of the economy inevitably led to the sacrifice of growth. On the one hand, early reopening of the economy will reduce the damage to growth. The underlying premise of the argument is that the emergence of a catastrophic existential crisis would have undermined the government's political legitimacy.
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Ready-Made Garments Sector
- State-Business-Labour Relations Before COVID-19
- Business and Politics in Bangladesh
- State-Labour Relations
- Impact of COVID-19 on RMG Sector
- Policy Responses
- Implementation of RMG Stimulus Packages
- Conclusions and Policy Implications
- Method: Ethnography in Korail Slum
- Perspectives of the Residents of the Low-Income Urban Settlement About and
- Phase One: Panic and Perplexity
- Phase Two: Private Initiatives at the Individual and Household Levels
- Phase Three: Initiation of Community Interventions
- Phase Four: Coronavirus Testing in the Community
- Phase Five: Changing Narratives of COVID-19 in the Community
- Discussion
Moreover, factory owners and BGMEA were unhappy with the quantum of the first stimulus package. Arguing that there were limitations of the stimulus package, the BGMEA sought budgetary support from the government and two more stimulus packages. Initially, the loan repayment period from the stimulus package was two years, including a grace period of six months (Mridha & Byron, 2020).
