Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. The low-lying tropical land is  traversed by the many branches and tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers which empty into the Bay of Bengal.

 

Bangladesh is established as a parliamentary democracy and has experienced steady economic growth at a rate of approximately five percent annually during the past decade. The ready-made garments industry employs over 2 million people, many of them women, and generates nearly 75 percent of the export earnings of the country. The country also made major strides to meet the food needs of its increasing population, through increased domestic production augmented by imports.

 

Bangladesh has been an initiator of many innovations of tackling poverty, overcoming hunger and ensuring social justice. In October 2006, Grameen Bank and its founder Mohammed Yunus, were jointly awarded with Nobel Peace Prize for providing banking service to rural poor and allowing them to gradually become financially independent by utilizing their vocational skills.  In order to enhance economic growth, the government set up several export processing zones to attract foreign investment. These are managed by the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority.

According to UNDP, Bangladesh has made impressive gains in key human development indicators and is considered to have achieved medium human development. The indicators are maintenance of macroeconomic stability, low population growth, increase in women’s empowerment, reduction in aid dependence, food self-sufficiency, effective disaster management capacity, promoting non-governmental organisations (NGOs), free and fair parliamentary elections, a vibrant, pluralist, democratic civil society marked by cultural activism and developmental debates, and an active and free press.