Noble Laureate Amartya Sen on child mortality and gender discrimination

This week, Noble Laureate Amartya Sen, who is also on the BRAC USA Advisory Council, drew attention to the link between child mortality and gender discrimination during an Indo-Bangla Dialogue on Health and Education. This two-day event was a joint venture of BRAC’s Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Pratichi Trust, with assistance from UNICEF Bangladesh.

During the dialogues, Sen said that gender discrimination in Bangladesh and India is the reason for the lack of investment in nutrition for pregnant mothers, leading to high infant mortality rates. He stressed that governments in both countries should learn internally from the private sector and NGO’s that utilize their resources strategically to bring about positive change. Sen suggested that Indian and Bangladeshi governments should focus on the best practices of the European and Japanese governments; both of them made massive strides in improving public health and education in the 19th century.

"Both health and education are two burning issues in south Asia, especially in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India," said Sen. He urged the governments in both countries to invest in school lunch programs which decrease dropout rates, and help children stay focused in class-rooms.

The dialogues were well attended; the Chairman of Center for Policy Dialogue Prof. Rehman Sobhan, Head of BRAC Health Programme Faruque Ahmed, political scientist Prof. Rownaq Jahan, Nobel Laureate Prof. Mohammad Yunus and UNICEF's country representative Carel de Rooy were among the participants.