CPD Policy Brief 4
Strategy towards Bangladesh’s Sustainable LDC Graduation
The design of an appropriate strategy towards Bangladesh’s sustainable graduation from the least developed country (LDC) category has gained high policy relevance. Bangladesh has become eligible for graduation in March 2018 at the triennial review of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP), a subsidiary advisory body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) (UN DESA 2018a). Graduation thresholds for at least two of the three graduation criteria – Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, the Human Assets Index (HAI) and the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI) – must be reached for eligibility. An LDC could also be eligible for graduation according to the income-only criteria. Here, the graduation threshold is twice the GNI per capita threshold (UN DESA 2018b). Bangladesh has been able to satisfy all the three criteria (Table 1). Indeed, this distinguishes Bangladesh from all the earlier graduates and the current candidate LDCs.
Authors: Mustafizur Rahman and Estiaque Bari
Publication period: March 2018
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