Population council asleep for 16 years

Since September 2010, the National Population Council (NPC) in Bangladesh has not convened a single meeting, despite its crucial role in guiding the country's population policy. This inactivity is particularly concerning as Bangladesh recently experienced its first increase in total fertility rate (TFR) in nearly five decades. The TFR of 2.4 children per woman in 2025, reported by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics with Unicef, is a cause for alarm as it could strain the health system, exacerbate poverty, and worsen maternal and child health and malnutrition.

The NPC's inaction has left its two implementing arms -- the executive committee and a task force -- also non-functional. The council's reconstitution in April 2025 by the interim government, with the health minister as its chairperson, has not resulted in any meetings thus far. Aminul Haque, a professor at the University of Dhaka's Department of Population Sciences, emphasizes that the council's absence signals a failure to prioritize population issues in national planning.

"Population should have been at the centre of all our national planning and the council's inactivity indicates that we failed to give population the importance it deserved," he notes. The country's demographic advantage was not harnessed effectively, and population issues have remained relegated to routine ministerial activities.

This failure is evident in the rise of the TFR from 2.3 in 2019 to 2.4 in 2025. Bangladesh is now the only South Asian country with rising fertility rates, putting additional pressure on an economy already grappling with population density, food insecurity, and overstretched health services. Experts attribute this increase to policy uncertainty under the previous Awami League government and complacency following decades of declining fertility.

The NPC, reconstituted in April 2025, is mandated to meet at least twice a year, but this has not materialized. The health ministry, acting as the council's secretariat, is tasked with arranging at least one meeting annually. Despite these efforts, the council has not convened a meeting since its reconstitution.