As urbanisation booms, could Bangladesh benefit from a dedicated Cities Ministry?

We are undergoing a silent national crisis: a merciless unfair urbanisation across our cities, towns, and urban centres. As Bangladesh races towards becoming one of the most urbanised countries in South Asia, its cities need an institutional champion. 

Urban areas already contribute to more than 60% of the national GDP according to Bangladesh government sources. Urban areas are also plagued by laissez-faire urban expansion, environmental injustices, socio-spatial inequalities, and exclusionary governance, leaving millions to dwell in stigmatised settlements, relying on inadequate infrastructure, and facing environmental hazards. 

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, there were 570 urban centres in Bangladesh in addition to 12 city corporations and over 325 municipalities as of 2014. The urban population in these areas have been accelerating. As of 2023, 40.47% of Bangladesh's population live in urban settings, and by 2050 that percentage is projected to grow to 56%. 

The World Bank projects that over 13 million people will be internally displaced by 2050, inducing continued migration to Bangladesh's urban areas. In other words, primary and secondary cities as well as urban growth centres will continue to be the frontline of Bangladesh's economic and environmental crises, including the climate crisis. 

The current context, therefore, underscores the pressing need to rethink urban governance if we want sustainable urbanisation in Bangladesh.

At present urban governance is folded into an overarching Local Government Division, which oversees both urban (over 325 municipalities and 12 city corporations) and rural areas (over 4,500 union parishads). Decades of research has highlighted the structural and operational barriers faced by Bangladesh's local government system. 

Skeptics may ask: Is this yet another bureaucratic nightmare? The Cities Ministry, as an umbrella institution, would be a transformative step to coordinate and steer urban development toward sustainability, equity, and resilience. Public participation will have to be central to its operation.

Most importantly, the power difference between central and local governments restricts the autonomy of local government institutions (LGIs). 

LGIs struggle to obtain funds from a complex, bureaucratic central government that is biased towards large-scale infrastructure projects. With minimal funding discretion and lacking capacity, LGIs are unable to respond to community needs and ensure the inclusion of the most marginalised people. 

To put it another way, Bangladesh's local government system is already burdened with massive obstacles in delivering essential services to communities and ensuring local participation. On top of this, as Bangladesh urbanises, the local government system has been positioned by default to address the unique challenges of post-colonial urbanisation. This is institutionally unfeasible. 

Bangladesh's local government system cannot meaningfully address rural and urban issues at the same time, as urban issues present a distinct set of opportunities and crises. Over five decades now, the local government system has been struggling to function and fulfill its primary responsibilities. 

Forget urban governance; becoming efficient enough to sufficiently meet the needs of union parishads has presented itself as unattainable so far for Bangladesh's local government institutions. It is time to unburden and unbundle our local government system from a pragmatic perspective. 

Urban governance, more specifically, needs to be disentangled from Bangladesh's broader local government system in order to rigorously address our context-specific urban challenges of fairness, inclusion, and empowerment. 

This separate urban governance institution can be a Cities Ministry, which can bravely take on the opportunity to govern Bangladesh's urbanisation. 

First, under the current local government system, urban governance falls under city corporations and municipalities, but these bodies are primarily service-delivery mechanisms with limited capacity for long-term urban planning. They are simply not designed to address the whole range of urban crises we face today. 

Beyond service-delivery, urban areas have unique challenges vis-à-vis trade, density, culture, economic development, transportation, environmental issues and disasters, fairness and justice concerns. Cities Ministry can approach urbanisation from a holistic framework suited for addressing broader urban concerns beyond functional service delivery.  

Second, various other local governmental entities outside municipal government have jurisdiction over urban areas. There are special development authorities (such as, RAJUK, KDA, CDA) involved in local urban planning and activities related to infrastructure and site development for housing, commercial, and industrial zones; special purpose authorities (such as DWASA, CWASA, DESA) that provide utilities in urban areas; and special government bodies (such as PWD and UDD) also play a crucial role in the physical production and maintenance of urban areas. 

Current local government system does not work across these various crucial institutional urban actors. A fragmented governance structure fails to create inter-agency and intercity coordination. Fragmentation also hampers strategic urban policy formulation in the context of climate adaptation and rapid urbanisation. 

Besides, with issues such as water management, waste disposal, and peri-urban growth, managing urban development requires collaboration across urban and rural administrations. A Cities Ministry can be a cross-cutting body to integrate various urban institutional actors, and develop intercity responses and urban-rural governance linkages. A Cities Ministry could efficiently advocate for an interscalar fair urban transition in Bangladesh.

Third, in the absence of any entity responsible for developing and coordinating a national urban growth approach across multiple cities and sectors, Bangladesh is experiencing uneven urban development. 

Cities like Dhaka and Chattogram dominate the urban agenda while secondary cities and small towns are neglected. Urban areas outside major cities fall through the cracks, receiving inadequate attention in terms of planning, resources, and governance. 

Moreover, in the 21st century, urban issues are deeply interconnected. For example, transportation corridors and investments shape gentrification dynamics in neighborhoods. Land use changes trigger environmental justice crises for communities. Often separate authorities manage intersecting issues in administrative siloes leading to long-term challenges. 

A Cities Ministry can act as a unifying body, taking an intersectoral approach towards urbanisation and ensuring that urban policies are aligned and mutually reinforcing, not contradictory.

Skeptics may ask: is this yet another bureaucratic nightmare? The Cities Ministry, as an umbrella institution, would be a transformative step to coordinate and steer urban development toward sustainability, equity, and resilience. Public participation will have to be central to its operation. 

In the domain of current local government institutions, people's participation is often minimal or tokenised. Urban government institutions such as RAJUK, DWASA, and PWD are run by government officials, and exclude people's voices in decision-making structures. 

To avoid creating bloated and meaningless bureaucracy, a Cities Ministry would need to institutionalise direct participatory governance across urban areas. 

A Cities Ministry could establish frameworks for locally-led planning and co-production with communities, recognising the lived realities and aspirations of urban residents. In this much needed effort, we can learn from the experiences of other countries and do it better with the benefit of the lessons from their experiments. 

For example, Brazil established a ministry dedicated to urban affairs in 2003. Brazil's Ministry of Cities has been instrumental in advancing affordable housing for low-income families.

We are wasting valuable time, money, labour, resources every day in the current urbanisation processes. The key is to design an outcome-oriented institution with clear mandates and the authority to coordinate across sectors and levels of government. 

Given the scale of ongoing and forthcoming urbanisation in Bangladesh, it is the appropriate time to establish a Cities Ministry — a dedicated institution to courageously engage the interconnected challenges of urbanisation in an equitable and practical manner. 

Today, Bangladesh's cities need an agile institution that can assess, implement, and readjust incrementally and fast, relying on different configurations of public and private resources. All existing planning and development authorities, service delivery entities, disaster response entities, agencies related to housing, development, law and order and so on — that is, all who have jurisdiction over Bangladeshi cities — will be within the purview of such a ministry.

Imagine a Bangladesh where people live in cities not out of necessity but out of choice, because that is where they feel at home and safe. 

In the Bangladeshi urbanism 2.0, informal settlements are upgraded, providing secure housing and basic services for all residents. Public spaces are vibrant and inclusive, fostering social cohesion and cultural pluralism. Rivers and wetlands are restored, not sacrificed, under local leadership as we embrace locally-led and socially-just adaptation and resilience designs. 

Transportation systems are efficient and equitable, reducing travel time and environmental impact. Secondary cities thrive as engines of regional development, reversing the trend of Dhaka-centric urbanisation. 

The possibilities are too many to list. A Cities Ministry can be our champion for Bangladeshi Urbanism 2.0!

Dr Efadul Huq (left) and Mohammad Azaz (right). Sketch: TBS

Dr Efadul Huq is Assistant Professor of Environmental Science & Policy and Urban Studies at Smith College, Massachusetts, US. Mohammad Azaz is Chairman of River and Delta Research Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh.