Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen on Monday said India can learn from Bangladesh why gender equality is important for economic and human progress.

‘If you analyse, you’ll see that if there is anything India can learn from Bangladesh, the big thing is why gender equity is important for economic and human progress,’ he said while delivering a two-hour public lecture on economic and human progress in Dhaka.

Daily Prothom Alo and Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) jointly arranged the public lecture at Krishibid Institute auditorium in the capital's Farmgate at about 4pm.

The lecture was organised on the occasion of the publication of ‘Bharat: Unnayan O Banchana’, which is actually the Bengali version of the book ‘An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions,’ jointly written by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze.

The Nobel Laureate said the major difference between Bangladesh and the rest of the subcontinent is that the women have wide economic, social and political role in Bangladesh especially after 1971.

Dr Sen said there is larger involvement for women in Family Planning that facilitated women’s participation in various sectors, he added.

‘It has to be admitted that it’s a credit to Bangladesh. The women’s empowerment happened at a good pace,’ he said adding that the proportion of women among teachers and health activists in Bangladesh is much larger than that in the subcontinent.

‘The situation of women was not same before 1971.’ he noted.

In 1990, per capita income of India was 50 percent higher than that of Bangladesh, now it is 100 percent higher. So India achieved higher economic progress, Amartya continued.

However, life expectancy in Bangladesh was three years less than in India in 1990, but now it is three years higher than that of India. Mortality rate in Bangladesh was much higher than that of India, but it is now lesser than that of India. Female enrolment rate was the same in 1990, but today the rate in Bangladesh is much higher than that of India, he added.

The main problem in the Indian subcontinent is lack of human progress, he observed adding that there is no country that could retain economic progress for a long without human development. “Weak human resources create uncertainty for economic progress. This is why we are trying to address human development.”

Stressing the need for increasing role of women in economy, society and politics, he said one of the major flaws in the subcontinent is that there is lack of women’s power to raise their voice.

The Nobel Laureate said there is no conflict between economic progress and human progress. “The economic development should be used for human progress. Lack of human progress can halt the economic progress.”

In the subcontinent there is a lack of the government’s efforts in education and health sectors compared to that of China. But here as well Bangladesh’s shortcoming is relatively little as it has nevertheless ensured 100 percent immunisation. “The effort of Bangladesh is much more than that of India,” he said.

Emphasising the education and healthcare systems under the government’s management, Amartya Sen said there is no single country in the world where universal education and healthcare have been achieved without help of the government. Even Europe, America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore could not do this.