Debapriya Bhattacharya

Debapriya was born in 1956 to a zamindar family in Ellenga, Kalihati, Tangail. His father, Justice Debesh Bhattacharya, was an eminent jurist and a judge of the Appellate Division, Supreme Court of Bangladesh and his mother, Chitra Bhattacharya, was a leader of women’s movement and Member of the Parliament of Bangladesh (1996-2001) nominated by Awami League against a reserved seat for Tangail.

Debapriya completed his secondary school examination in November 1972 from St. Gregory's High School, Dhaka and higher secondary examination in 1974 (held in 1975) from Dhaka College, Dhaka. He received his MSc with Distinction (1980) and PhD in Economics (1984) from Plekhanov National Planning Institute, Moscow. He had been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford (1992). He held a number of short-term visiting positions including at the UN University Institute of New Technology (UNU-INTECH), Institute of Developing Economics (IDE), Tokyo and University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He was also a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the CGD, Washington DC (2002-2003).

Debapriya started his career in 1984 at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and resigned as a Senior Research Fellow in 1999 to join (CPD) as its first Executive Director (1999-2007). He was also the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the WTO and UN offices and other international organisations in Geneva and Vienna (2007-2009).[2] He resigned from the position of Ambassador on “ethical” grounds, prior to the National Elections in 2008.[3] Currently he is a Distinguished Fellow at the CPD since 2010.

He was appointed the Special Advisor on LDCs to the Secretary General, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and was the President of the governing board of UNCTAD (2009-2010).

He is a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (UN CDP) and also the Chair of two global initiatives, LDC IV Monitor from 2011 and Southern Voice from 2013. He was concurrently accredited to the Holy See in Vatican.

Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya is engaged in high-level policy designing and advising on behalf of the national government and various bilateral and international development agencies at home and in a number of developing countries. He was a member of the Macro-economic Policy Advisory Committee, Ministry of Finance; Banking Sector Reform Committee; Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Panel of Economists for the Fifth Five Year Plan (1997-2002), Ministry of Planning; Member, National Committee on Utilisation of Gas Resources, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and National Committee for Vision 2020, Prime Minister’s Office. Debapriya drafted the Industrial Policy (1999) for the Ministry of Industries. He was a Director of Janata Bank (1996-2000), the second largest bank in Bangladesh.

He was a member of the Task Force on “Foreign Aid” constituted under the Advisor (Minister) for Planning in the Interim Government of 1991. He has been a longstanding member of the Advisory Committee on WTO Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Government of Bangladesh. He led the “Independent Review of Bangladesh’s Development”, initiated in 1995, for more than a decade which provided critical analysis of the state of the economy on an on-going basis. He also became the public face critique of the budget.

Debapriya undertook consultancy assignments on behalf of international and bilateral development agencies in various developing countries from Asia, Africa and Central America. He had been a member of the Monitoring Advisory Group of the Global Partnership of Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), managed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He was the General Secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association for three consecutive terms (1991-1998). Currently, he is the Member of the Steering Committee of the Forum on Trade, Environment & the SDGs (TESS).

Debapriya is the founder and Convenor of the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, a network of about 150 development organisations and private sector bodies. He is the member of the governing board of BRAC International since 2012. He was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Gandhi Ashram Trust (GAT) and currently he is the President of Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA), Jitendrabala Girl's High School, Ellenga and Ram Krishna Mission, Tangail.

He spearheaded a participatory citizen’s initiative leading to the preparation of “Vision 2021” document for Bangladesh. The objective of preparing Bangladesh Vision 2021 was to try to present a framework of a future Bangladesh that would reflect the hopes and aspirations of the citizens of the country for an economically inclusive and politically accountable society. The Vision proposes a set of concrete measures to achieve eight identified goals by 2021.

Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya has been playing an active role in national, regional and international electronic and print media. He anchored a prime time talk show, titled “Development Dialogue,” for four years (1996–2000) on Bangladesh Television (BTV). He provides regular commentary in global media, including British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Deutsche Welle and Voice of America on concurrent and economic issues.

Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya is married to Dr Irina Shebanova, an economist and they have a daughter Alexandra Bhattacharya, a lawyer, who works at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva. His brother. Dr. Dipen Bhattacharya  (Dr Debadarshi Bhattacharya) is an astrophysicist and professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Riverside City College, California, USA and also a science fiction novel writer.

Books (Editor/Co-Editor/Co-Authors)

Bhattacharya, D. (Ed). 2019. Bangladesh's Graduation from the Least Developed Countries Group; Pitfalls and Promises. London: Routledge.

Bhattacharya, D. and Ordonez A. (Eds.). 2016. Southern Perspectives on the Post-2015 International Development Agenda. London: Routledge.

Bhattacharya, D. and Mikic, M. 2015. Least Developed Countries and Trade: Challenges of Implementing the Bali Package. UN ESCAP.

Bhattacharya, D., Jahan, S. 2020. Global State of SDGs-Three Layers of Critical Action: Southern Voice.

Research Papers/ Book Chapters

Bhattacharya, D., Gonsior, V. and Öhler, H. (2021). The Implementation of the SDGs: The Feasibility of Using the GPEDC Monitoring Framework. In the book titled, “The Palgrave Handbook of development cooperation for achieving the 2030 Agenda: contested collaboration”. Singapore: Springer.

Bhattacharya, D., Khan, S.S. (2020, April 30). Rethinking Development Effectiveness: Perspectives from the Global South.

Working Paper

Bhattacharya, D., Khan, T.I. and Khan, S.S. (2021). Are we asking the right questions? Choices and Challenges in Assessing COVID-19 Impact on the Vulnerable in Bangladesh. Dhaka: Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh.

Blogs

Bhattacharya, D. and Khan, S.S. (2021). Post-COVID world discourse: four fault lines. On Think Tanks. 11 January.

Bhattacharya, D. and Khan, S.S. (2021). Removing the Wedge between Process Actors and Knowledge Actors in Development Cooperation: A Step toward More Inclusive and Networked Global Governance. Center for Global Development (CGD). 14 June.

Bhattacharya, D., Islam, R. F. (2020). Least Developed Countries Confronting COVID-19: Response and Resilience. United Nations Office for the South-South Cooperation.

Bhattacharya, D., Islam, R. F. (2020). The COVID-19 Scourge: How affected are the Least Developed Countries? OECD Development Matters.

Bhattacharya, D., Khan, S.S. (2020). COVID-19: A game changer for the Global South and international co-operation? OECD Development Matters.

Opeds

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 03 September). রেমিট্যান্সের জাদু কি শেষ হয়ে যাচ্ছে. Prothom Alo.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 29 August). পিছিয়ে পড়া মানুষ কতটুকু সুফল পাচ্ছে. Samakal.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 27 July). Intellectual property rights issues must be embedded in Bangladesh’s LDC graduation strategy. The Financial Express.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 4 June). বাজেটে মহামারি পরিস্থিতির প্রতিফলন নেই. Samakal.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 4 June). অতিমারির বাস্তবতা উঠে আসেনি. Prothom Alo.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 3 June). Glimpses from our national budget history. The Financial Express.

Bhattacharya, D. and Hossain, M. (2021, 28 May). Unpacking the Covid-19 stimulus packages: The devil is in the details. The Daily Star.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 4 May). Direct cash transfer needed for the poor. The Business Standard.

Bhattacharya, D., Khan, T.I., Bari, E. Chowdhury, F.S. and Khan, S.S. (2021, 27 April). Marginalised communities dealing with the COVID-19 fallouts. The Daily Star.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 21 April). Life after LDC Graduation: How is Bangladesh poised for EU GSP+? The Business Standard.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 26 March). সংস্কার এখন সময়ের দাবি. Manabzamin.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 11 March). Bangladesh qualifies for LDC graduation: What next? The Financial Express.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 28 February). উচ্ছ্বাস আছে, উদ্যম রাখতে হবে. Prothom Alo.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 26 February). টেকসই উত্তরণে চাই কার্যকর কৌশল. Samakal.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 21 February). সাদা-কালো টাকার এই অন্যায় খেলা শেষ হতে হবে. Samaka l.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 20 January). LDC graduation: Sophie’s Choice? The Business Standard.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 14 January). এলডিসি থেকে উত্তরণের সময় পেছানো যৌক্তিক. Prothom Alo.

Bhattacharya, D. (2021, 1 January). বাংলাদেশ অভিজ্ঞতার নিরিখে, প্রত্যাশার আলোকে. Samakal.