Dichotomy of development aid’s ambition and neoliberal imperatives: A case‐study of private‐sector development in Bangladesh

Development in the twenty‐first century (“neo‐liberalism”) is a tool and its success and sustainability depend on how this tool is applied on a specific grounded reality. This article investigates how this modernization process continually co‐creates globalized Bangladesh through private sector development. While this field report highlights the challenges development aid donors can face in Bangladesh’s post‐colonial culture, it also unveils the dichotomous traction between globalization and inequality as well as the friction poverty reduction, through private sector development, can generate in impoverished countries. Finally, this report attempts to reconsider the ways in which the aid development ambitions of equality and liberty can find a workable balance with the neo‐liberal Imperative for private sector development. This article calls for improving quality control to generate greater impact of development aid resources in developing private sectors.     

Global Governance,neoliberalism and national responses: The case of Bangladesh’s ready‐made garment (RMG) sector

This article on the ready‐made garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh shows how over‐reliance on foreign capital for development financing and deregulated investment—a hallmark of neoliberal economic arrangements—undermines the incorporation of SDGs’ and INGOs’ equity principles, contributing to biased policy responses yielding unequal outcomes. The article cautions that while countries prioritize economic growth over social and environmental nourishment and continue to adopt neoliberal economic policies to promote economic growth, inequity is unavoidable, if not inevitable. Thus, the way forward may be to shift the focus of ‘development’ from the economy to society, to building ‘good societies’ where institutions and strategies, including those that contribute to economic growth, are organized such that these complement not compromise the evolution of such societies.