The Rana Plaza disaster exposes a deeper crisis which originated in the lack of governance in Bangladesh and beyond that, in the unjust nature of the globalisation process.
CPD Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan made arguments as such in the Development, Thought and Policy Lecture Seminar, as part of the Julien J. Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs’ Development, Thought and Policy (DTP) group at the New School in New York, USA on 8 October 2014.
His presentation on “The Rana Plaza Industrial Disaster: Lessons from Political Economy of Globalization” presented the case of the collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building in the suburbs of Dhaka, which housed five garment factories. Considered the worst industrial disaster in recorded history, the incident killed over 1100 workers and injured over 1800.
The session included a discussion on the scope for dealing with these injustices within Bangladesh and in the global economic order.