1st DUSDAA Seminar
Venue: Room # 406, Department of Statistics, Dhaka University.
Date: 25/07/2019
Thursday at 12.00 noon
Title: The Bangladesh paradox: Impressive gains in health despite high income inequality.
Speaker: Dr. Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury
Abstract: Bangladesh has done very impressively over the past few decades. Infant and maternal mortality have been reduced drastically. Life expectancy has increased to over 72 years and total fertility has reached almost at the replacement level. Enrollment in primary school is almost universal. Women have also been empowered significantly. This has happened despite poverty which is about 24%. Inequality in income is high and rising (Gini coefficient is 0.48). This presentation will discuss these results and provide some explanations for the paradox.
Biography of Dr. Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury
Mushtaque Chowdhury is the Vice Chair of BRAC. Previously, he was its Executive Director, founding Director of the Research and Evaluation Division and founding Dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health.
Dr. Chowdhury is also a Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University in New York which makes him (probably) the first Bangladeshi to hold a professorial position in an Ivy League university. He also worked as the Senior Adviser and acting Managing Director for the Rockefeller Foundation and as a MacArthur/Bell Fellow at Harvard University.
Dr. Chowdhury received many awards including the prestigious ‘Medical Award of Excellence’ given by the Chicago- based Ronald McDonald House Charities (2017) and the ‘Innovator of the Year’ award from Marriott Business School at Brigham Young University in Utah (2006). He was honored by The Lancet for his contribution to global health (2013).
Dr. Chowdhury is a founder of the Bangladesh Education Watch and Bangladesh Health Watch, two civil society watch-dogs. He is on the board and committees of several organizations and initiatives, including:
- BRAC University (member Board of Trustees)
- Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) (Senior Fellow)
- The Humanitarian Leadership Academy in London (founding member of the Board)
- Compact2025 at International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC (member of working group)
- The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement at UN headquarters (member of the Lead Group)
- Sanitation and Water for All (SWA), Unicef (member of Leaders group)
- Expert Group on Scaling Up in Education at the Results for Development (R4D), Washington DC (advisory member)
- South Asia Centre at the London School of Economics (member of Advisory Board)
- International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics (Senior Adviser)
- Bangladesh Water Multi-sector Partnership (co-Chair).
- The Asian Action Alliance for Human Resources in Health (AAAH) (Immediate past Chair)
- Citizens Platform for SDGs in Bangladesh (Centre for Policy Dialogue) (member of Core Group)
- The Dhaka University Statistics Department Alumni Association (DUSDAA) (President).
Dr Chowdhury has published nearly 200 articles in national and international journals. One of his books has received the 2018 University Press Ltd (UPL) award in the category of ‘Outstanding Impact’. He holds a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hon’s) in Statistics from the University of Dhaka.
N.B. DUSDAA Members are requested to attend the seminars.
Regards, Prof. Md. Lutfor Rahaman, DUSDAA Secretary General.
