Global learnings for Bangladesh's new government

To the newly elected party,

Your victory in February 2026 carries a mandate that extends far beyond partisan politics. The students who stood in the streets during July 2024 did not risk their lives for cosmetic change or a mere rotation of parties. They demanded the dismantling of a system that had strangled opportunity and rewarded extraction over creation. You inherit a country where nearly two million young people enter the workforce annually, but face a labour market designed for a previous century. This is not simply an employment crisis. It is a structural failure that threatens to turn the most potent demographic dividend in our history into a powder keg of frustration.

The task is clear: transform Bangladesh from a nation of rent-seekers into a nation of value creators. This requires the systematic destruction of barriers that prevent young people from building, scaling and sustaining ventures.

Consider Rwanda's approach following the 1994 genocide. President Kagame's government created the Rwanda Development Board in 2008 as a single entity responsible for all business operations. Critically, they did not stop at registration. They tracked the entire lifecycle of a business and removed friction at every stage. A construction permit that once took 270 days now takes 93 days. Registering property dropped from 371 days to seven days.

Bangladesh must replicate this obsession with the post-registration journey. Yes, we can register a business online, but what happens when that business tries to acquire land, connect to utilities, hire employees or export goods? Each of these stages remains a gauntlet of extortion and delay. The government must map the entire entrepreneurial journey and wage war on friction at every checkpoint.

Chile's handling of capital after Pinochet offers another model. Start-Up Chile, launched in 2010, provided equity-free seed capital to entrepreneurs globally with no collateral or connections required. Within a decade, Chile became Latin America's leading startup ecosystem, attracting 3,000 startups and generating over US$ 1.4 billion in follow-on funding. Chilean youths watched foreigners receive state backing and demanded the same treatment. The cultural shift towards entrepreneurship became irreversible.

Bangladesh needs patient capital that understands technology and agriculture as convergent opportunities. With more than 50 per cent of our land arable, we possess a natural advantage that most nations lack. However, we treat agriculture as a traditional sector rather than a frontier for innovation. A young engineer in Sylhet developing precision farming tools faces identical barriers to a Dhaka fintech founder: access to risk-tolerant investors, regulatory clarity and freedom from syndicate control. In the age of artificial intelligence, where computational power and data will determine economic winners, every natural resource we possess, every acre of fertile land, every skilled graduate counts towards safeguarding our people's future. The government must seed venture funds with explicit mandates to invest in agritech, climate adaptation and resource optimisation outside Dhaka and outside the usual networks of privilege.

The syndicate economy strangling enterprise here is policy choice, not cultural inevitability. Georgia's post-Rose Revolution government eliminated hundreds of licences serving no purpose except creating chokepoints for bribes. They fired the entire traffic police force overnight and rebuilt it with higher salaries and zero tolerance for corruption. Within two years, Georgia jumped from 112th to 37th in the World Bank's ease of doing business rankings.

For Bangladesh, this means confronting actors who profit from artificial scarcity. Markets must function as markets, not feudal territories. Transport should be priced by competition, not syndicate decree.

Capital flight represents another silent crisis. Bangladeshi entrepreneurs with overseas profit bring only salaries, keeping their capital abroad. They find ways to hundi money out through informal channels or, worse, steal from domestic banks through connected lending and never-repaid loans. This is not cultural preference but rational calculation about institutional weakness. South Korea addressed this after democratisation by creating independent financial regulators and transparent corporate governance. They prosecuted business executives who violated laws, proving wealth did not grant immunity. Capital that had fled to Hong Kong began returning because rule of law became predictable.

Investors need to know courts will enforce contracts, regulatory changes will not be arbitrary and political connections will not determine outcomes. This is about creating conditions where entrepreneurs with capital choose to deploy it at home rather than wire it to Dubai.

The administrative state remains the most immediate barrier. A graduate opening a small export-oriented nano SME shop should not require 14 approvals from seven agencies. Each approval point becomes an extraction opportunity. Singapore's approach is instructive. They question whether each process needs to exist. Their regulatory guillotine eliminates outdated rules systematically, operating on the principle that if a regulation cannot be justified in plain language, it should be abolished.

Skills development requires moving beyond certificate mills. Many developed nations created industry-specific training centres run jointly by companies and government where students learned on actual production lines, not in theoretical classrooms. Companies must design courses, provide equipment and guarantee placement for competent graduates.

Global chaos, with its supply shocks and geopolitical fractures, is not an excuse for inaction but a reason for urgency. Taiwan faced international isolation for decades while building one of Asia's most dynamic economies by focusing on education, rule of law and support for enterprise. Extremism finds fertile ground where opportunity is absent. A young person with a growing business and a stake in the future is unlikely to embrace destructive worldviews.

This will be difficult. Bureaucrats accustomed to supplementing salaries through bribes will claim reform is impractical. Syndicates will fund protests. Political allies will demand exceptions. The mandate received was not to manage decline but to deliver transformation.

The generation that stood in July's heat is watching. They expect a country where merit matters more than connections, where starting a business does not require navigating corruption and where the law protects the weak from the strong. Give them systems that reward creation over extraction, institutions that function without bribes and markets that operate without cartels.

You cannot build the future for the youth, but you can build the youth for the future by ensuring they inherit a nation that works. That is the test history will apply to your tenure. Do not fail it.

rummank@gmail.com