Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human

development goals while at the same time sustaining the ability of natural systems
to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which
the economy and society depend. The desired result is a state of society where
living conditions and resource use continue to meet human needs without
undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system. Sustainable
development can be classified as development that meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations. It has been suggested that
"the term 'sustainability' should be viewed as humanity's target goal of human-
ecosystem equilibrium (homeostasis), while 'sustainable development' refers to the
holistic approach and temporal processes that lead us to the end point of
sustainability".[1] The modern economies are endeavouring to reconcile ambitious
economic development and obligations of preserving the natural
resources and ecosystem, the two are traditionally seen as of conflicting nature.
Instead of holding climate change commitments and other sustainability measures
as a drug to economic development, turning and leveraging them into market
opportunities will do greater good

Poverty is the scarcity or the lack of a certain (variant) amount of material

possessions or money. Poverty is a multifaceted concept, which may
include social, economic, and political elements. Absolute poverty, extreme
poverty, or destitution refers to the complete lack of the means necessary to meet
basic personal needs such as food, clothing and shelter

Equity means fairness or evenness, and achieving it is considered an economic

objective. Despite the general recognition of the desirability of fairness, it is often
regarded as too normative a concept because it is difficult to define and measure.
For most economists, equity relates to how fairly income and opportunity are
distributed between different groups in a given society.

The opposite of equity is inequality, and this can arise in two main ways:

Inequality of outcome

Inequality of outcome from economic transactions occurs when some individuals

gain much more than others do from an economic transaction. For example,
individuals who sell their labour to a single buyer, a monopsonist, may receive a
much lower wage than those who sell their labour to a firm in a highly competitive
market. Inequality of income is an important type of inequality of outcome.
Inequality of opportunity :
Inequality of opportunity occurs when individuals are denied access to institutions
or employment, which limits their ability to benefit from living in a market
economy. For example, children from poor homes may be denied access to high
quality education, which limits their ability to achieve high levels of income in the
future.

Fungibility is the ability of a good or asset to be interchanged with other

individual goods or assets of the same type. Assets that are fungible are
exchangeable for each other and simplify the exchange and trade processes, as
fungibility implies equal value between the assets.
Liquidity describes the degree to which an asset or security can be quickly bought
or sold in the market without affecting the asset's price.

Market liquidity refers to the extent to which a market, such as a country's stock
market or a city's real estate market, allows assets to be bought and sold at stable
prices. Cash is considered the most liquid asset, while real estate, fine art and
collectibles are all relatively illiquid.Accounting liquidity measures the ease with
which an individual or company can meet their financial obligations with the liquid
assets available to them.

Brain drain is a slang term indicating a significant emigration of educated or

talented individuals. A brain drain can result from turmoil within a nation, the
existence of favorable professional opportunities in other countries or from a desire
to seek a higher standard of living. In addition to occurring geographically, brain
drain may occur at the organizational or industrial levels when workers perceive
better pay, benefits or upward mobility within another company or industry.

Migrants to foreign countries who take up unskilled jobs despite having

professional qualifications are called, by economists, brain waste. That’s because
the migrants are forced to take up jobs that do not utilize their skills if they are
unable to find employment at par with their qualifications in thenewcountry.
Tied aid is foreign aid that must be spent in the country providing the aid (the
donor country) or in a group of selected countries. A developed country will
provide a bilateral loan or grant to a developing country, but mandate that the
money be spent on goods or services produced in the selected country.

Untied Aid is assistance given to developing countries which can be used to

purchase goods and services in virtually all countries. [1] It is contrasted with tied
aid which stipulates that goods and services bought with it can only be purchased
from the donor country or from a limited selection of countries. One of the main
arguments in favour of untied aid is that tied aid can create important distortions in
the market by limiting the number of countries where the recipient can make
purchases. These limitations impede the recipient country’s ability to find the most
cost-effective way to spend the aid they receive. It is estimated that goods and
services purchased with tied aid cost 15-30% more than comparable goods and
services acquired with untied aid. Furthermore, tied aid often favours capital-
intensive goods and advising primarily in the donor country’s area of expertise.
That may lead recipient countries to make purchases which are inappropriate for
realising their development goals.
Extreme poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, was
originally defined by the United Nations in 1995 as "a condition characterized by
severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water,
sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only
on income but also on access to services.

Absolute poverty – is a condition where household income is below a necessary

level to maintain basic living standards (food, shelter, housing). This condition
makes it possible to compare between different countries and also over time.

Relative poverty – A condition where household income is a certain percentage

below median incomes. For example, the threshold for relative poverty could be
set at 50% of median incomes (or 60%)

Much debate in types of conditionality centers around ex-ante versus ex-post

conditionality. In ex-post conditionality, the country receiving aid agrees to
conditions set by the donor or lender that they will carry out after they receive the
aid. Later follow-ups determine whether they might receive more aid. Ex-ante
conditionality requires a country to meet certain conditions and prove it can
maintain them before it will receive any aid.
 Ex ante conditionalities (ExAC) are one of the key elements of the cohesion
policy reform for 2014-20. They were introduced for the European Structural and
Investment Funds (ESI Funds) to ensure that the necessary conditions for the
effective and efficient use of ESI Funds are in place.These conditions are linked to:

 policy and strategic frameworks, to ensure that the strategic documents at national
and regional level which underpin ESI Funds investments are of high quality and
in line with standards commonly agreed by Member States at EU level;
 regulatory frameworks, to ensure that implementation of operations co-financed by
ESI Funds complies with the EU acquis;
 sufficient administrative and institutional capacity of public administration and
stakeholders implementing the ESI Funds

Debt crisis, a situation in which a country is unable to pay back its

government debt. A country can enter into a debt crisis when the tax revenues of
its government are less than its expenditures for a prolonged period.In any country,
the government finances its expenditures primarily by
raising money through taxation. When tax revenues are insufficient, the
government can make up the difference by issuing debt. That is done primarily by
selling government treasury bills in the open market to investors.A government
with a good reputation and little debt or an established track record of paying back
what it has borrowed usually does not face much difficulty in finding investors
who are willing to lend to it. However, if the debt load of a government becomes
too large, investors begin to worry about its ability to pay back, and they start
demanding higher interest rates to compensate for the higher risk. That results in
an increase in the cost of borrowing for that government. As investor confidence
deteriorates further over time, pushing the cost of borrowing to higher levels, the
government may find it more and more difficult to roll over its existing debt and
may eventually default and enter into a debt crisis.

Food security, as defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food

Security, is the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social and
economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary
needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Over the coming
decades, a changing climate, growing global population, rising food prices, and
environmental stressors will have significant yet highly uncertain impacts on food
security.
The Social Safety Net of the United States is made up of various Welfare
Programs to protect low-income Americans from poverty and hardship. The
programs are meant to be a safety net to catch Americans if they fall on hard
times. The goal is to get Americans of sound body and mind back on their
feet. For those individuals without sound body and mind the goal is to protect
them with a minimum standard of living. These Social Safety Net programs are
non-contributory transfer payment programs. In other words, low-income
Americans get the benefits for free - they don’t have to contribute into the
programs to receive benefits.
There are 13 categories of Federal Welfare Programs which are shown on
the Safety Net Programs Page. State Programs and non-profit organizations also
make up the Social Safety Net available to Americans. These programs vary by
location and include food, housing, counseling and other benefits.

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world:

GOAL 1: No Poverty
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
GOAL 13: Climate Action
GOAL 14: Life Below Water
GOAL 15: Life on Land
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

The Harrod–Domar model is a classical Keynesian model of economic growth.

It is used in development economics to explain an economy's growth rate in terms
of the level of saving and productivity of capital. It suggests that there is no natural
reason for an economy to have balanced growth. The model was developed
independently by Roy F. Harrod in 1939,[1] and Evsey Domar in 1946,[2] although a
similar model had been proposed by Gustav Cassel in 1924.[3] The Harrod–Domar
model was the precursor to the exogenous growth model.[4]Neoclassical
economists claimed shortcomings in the Harrod–Domar model—in particular
the instability of its solution[5]—and, by the late 1950s, started an academic
dialogue that led to the development of the Solow–Swan model.[6][7]According to
the Harrod–Domar model there are three kinds of growth: warranted growth, actual
growth and natural rate of growth.Warranted growth rate is the rate of growth at
which the economy does not expand indefinitely or go into recession. Actual
growth is the real rate increase in a country's GDP per year. (See also: Gross
domestic product and Natural gross domestic product). Natural growth is the
growth an economy requires to maintain full employment. For example, If the
labor force grows at 3 percent per year, then to maintain full employment, the
economy’s annual growth rate must be 3 percent.

Quality of life is a highly subjective measure of happiness that is an important

component of many financial decisions. Factors that play a role in quality of life
vary according to personal preferences, but they often include financial security,
job satisfaction, family life, health and safety. Financial decisions usually involve a
tradeoff wherein quality of life is decreased in order to save money or, conversely,
quality of life is increased by spending more money.

The big push model is a concept in development economics or welfare

economics that emphasizes that a firm's decision whether to industrialize or not
depends on its expectation of what other firms will do. It assumes economies of
scale and oligopolistic market structure and explains when industrialization would
happen.The originator of this theory was Paul Rosenstein-Rodan in 1943. Further
contributions were made later on by Murphy, Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny in
1989. Analysis of this economic model ordinarily involves using game theory.The
theory of the model emphasizes that underdeveloped countries require large
amounts of investments to embark on the path of economic development from their
present state of backwardness. This theory proposes that a 'bit by bit' investment
programme will not impact the process of growth as much as is required for
developing countries. In fact, injections of small quantities of investments will
merely lead to a wastage of resources. Paul Rosenstein-Rodan approvingly quotes
a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study in this regard, "There is a minimum
level of resources that must be devoted to... a development programme if it is to
have any chance of success. Launching a country into self-sustaining growth is a
little like getting an airplane off the ground. There is a critical ground speed which
must be passed before the craft can become airborne.
The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is an agreement reached on January
6, 2004, at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan. It created a free trade
area of 1.6 billion people
in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka (as of 2011, the combined population is 1.8 billion people). The seven
foreign ministers of the region signed a framework agreement on SAFTA to
reduce customs duties of all traded goods to zero by the year 2016. The SAFTA
agreement came into force on January 1, 2006, [
The basic principles underlying SAFTA are as under;

1. overall reciprocity and mutuality of advantages so as to benefit equitably all

Contracting States, taking into account their respective level of economic
and industrial development, the pattern of their external trade, and trade and
tariff policies and systems;
2. negotiation of tariff reform step by step, improved and extended in
successive stages through periodic reviews;
3. recognition of the special needs of the Least Developed Contracting States
and agreement on concrete preferential measures in their favour;
4. inclusion of all products, manufactures and commodities in their raw, semi-
processed and processed forms

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic

Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an international organisation of seven nations
of South Asia and South East Asia, housing 1.5 billion people and having a
combined gross domestic product of $3.5 trillion (2018). [3][4] The BIMSTEC
member states—Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri
Lanka, Thailand , Nepal and Bhutan [5]—are among the countries dependent on the
Bay of Bengal.
Fourteen priority sectors of cooperation have been identified and several
BIMSTEC centres have been established to focus on those sectors. [3][6] A
BIMSTEC free trade agreement is under negotiation

Objective[
The 14 main objective of BIMSTEC is technological and economic cooperation
among south Asian and southeast Asian countries along the coast of the bay of
Bengal. Commerce, Investment, Technology, Tourism, Human Resource
Development, Agriculture, Fisheries, Transport and Communication, Textiles,
Leather etc. have been included in it.[4] Provide cooperation to one another for the
provision of training and research facilities in educational vocational and technical
fields. Promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in economic,social
,technical and scientific fields of common interest.It also provides help to increase
the socio-economic growth of the member countries.

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished

borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit
history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many
recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get
conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans
that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are
between 95 and 98 percent.[2] Microcredit is part of microfinance, which provides a
wider range of financial services, especially savings accounts, to the poor. Modern
microcredit is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen
Bank founded in Bangladesh in 1983.[3] Many traditional banks subsequently
introduced microcredit despite initial misgivings. The United Nationsdeclared
2005 the International Year of Microcredit. As of 2012, microcredit is widely used
in developing countries and is presented as having "enormous potential as a tool
for poverty alleviation."[4] Microcredit is a tool that can be helpful to possibly
reduce feminization of poverty in developing countries.

Industrial sickness is defined all over the world as "an industrial company (being
a company registered for not less than five years) which has, at the end of
any financial year, accumulated losses equal to, or exceeding, its entire net
worth and has also suffered cash losses in such financial year and the financial year
immediately preceding such financial year

The infant industry argument states that developing countries are justified to put
tariffs on imports if they are seeking to develop new industries and diversify their
economy. In particular, there is a justification for placing tariffs on industries
where a country has a latent comparative advantage. This means that if they can
develop infrastructure and economies of scale – they will have a comparative
advantageMany developing economies have a current (static) comparative
advantage in producing primary products (minerals, agriculture). However, in the
long-term producing these primary product goods have certain disadvantages.
1. Low-income elasticity of demand. As incomes rise, demand for primary products
increases only slowly. Therefore relying on primary products limits economic
development.
2. Price volatility. Many primary products have a volatile price because supply and
demand are inelastic. In this case, it is good to diversify the economy.

The Generalized Scheme of Preferences, or GSP, is a preferential tariff system

which provides for a formal system of exemption from the more general rules of
the World Trade Organization (WTO), (formerly, the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade or GATT).[1] Specifically, it is a system of exemptions from
the most favored nation principle (MFN) that obliges WTO member countries to
treat the imports of all other WTO member countries no worse than they treat the
imports of their "most favored" trading partner. In essence, MFN requires WTO
member countries to treat imports coming from all other WTO member countries
equally, that is, by imposing equal tariffs on them.
GSP exempts WTO member countries from MFN for the purpose of lowering
tariffs for the least developed countries, without also lowering tariffs for rich
countries

What is a GMO?
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are living organisms whose genetic
material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic
engineering. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and virus genes
that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.Most
GMOs have been engineered to withstand the direct application of herbicide and/or
to produce an insecticide. However, new technologies are now being used to
artificially develop other traits in plants, such as a resistance to browning in apples,
and to create new organisms using synthetic biology. Despite biotech industry
promises, there is no evidence that any of the GMOs currently on the market offer
increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer
benefit.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized

businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel numbers fall below certain
limits.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the most important segment of any
economy in the world. SMEs are getting the highest priority from policymakers
due to their already proven multidimensional contribution to the socioeconomic
environment of a country. These enterprises are easy to start, require only
minimum capital, employ a comparatively higher number of people, and produce
goods that meet local demands as well as contribute to export earnings. Definition
of SMEs is based mainly on indicators of replacement cost (invested amount),
number of people employed, yearly revenue, etc. Size of the indicators varies
based on the socioeconomic condition of the country or even the region. Table 1
shows how the government of Bangladesh has defined SMEs in its latest industrial
policy, the National Industrial Policy of 2016

Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) is an autonomous

institution that strives for research and training of local people as well as
practitioners on rural development. The academy is known for implementing
the Comilla Model in the 1960s that has been internationally recognised as a model
project for rural development in the developing countries.[1][2]One of the main
functions of BARD is to provide training for both officials and non-official
members of the public and private institutions working on rural development. The
training is provided in the form of courses, visit programmes, workshops and
seminars.[1]

The research is basically aimed at collecting socioeconomic data for planning and
project preparation. Findings are also used for training and information materials
by respective public bodies and planning institutions. Research also relate to the
evaluation of national rural development programmes either independently or
jointly with government agencies, universities and research organisation