The Aid Lab

The Aid Lab breaks the long silence on the 1974 famine, locating the disaster that killed 1.5 million people at the heart of the explanation of Bangladesh’s unexpected human development achievements. After that singular catastrophe, the book argues, protecting its citizens against disasters and hunger became the young nation’s priority, laying the foundations of its social contract and its subsequent development success. The book’s argument counters a nationalistic reading of history in which economic progress was the fruit of national political independence, exploring the critical event that bound Bangladesh’s ruling elites to protect its people against the climatic and subsistence crises endemic to the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh’s relatively inclusive, pro-poor, and women-focused pathway to growth owes much to the lessons of the famine. Originally published by Oxford University Press in 2017, this Bangladesh edition includes a new introduction and a postscript in the wake of the historic student-people uprising that unseated the authoritarian Awami League regime in 2024. The book is recommended by The Economist as ‘the story of how Bangladesh overcame adversity’, a ‘must read’ about Bangladesh.