The National Population Council (NPC), tasked with steering Bangladesh’s population policy and recommending changes, hasn’t met since September 2010, raising questions about the government’s oversight of population issues.
The council’s inactivity comes at a critical time: Bangladesh has recorded its first rise in total fertility rate (TFR) in nearly five decades, which experts warn could strain the health system and the economy, deepen poverty, and worsen maternal and child health and malnutrition.
With the council non-functional, its two implementing arms -- the executive committee, led by the health minister, and a task force, led by the health secretary -- have also remained non-functional.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh adopted two national population policies during this period, in 2012 and 2025, without a single council meeting, even though its mandate is to guide implementation and direct necessary revisions.
Yet, the latest policy states that the health ministry, acting as the council’s secretariat, will arrange at least one council meeting annually.
Although the council was reconstituted in April 2025, with the chief adviser of the interim government as its chairperson, it has yet to hold a meeting. Under the reconstitution circular, the council is required to meet at least twice a year.
“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,” said Aminul Haque, a professor at the University of Dhaka’s Department of Population Sciences.
The country could have adopted much stronger, population-centred policies with a greater state focus not just on population control but on population management and maximising the output from the population.
“The council could have provided such strategic directions, but it was absent.”
As a result, population issues continued to be handled through routine ministerial activities, but they never received top-level attention or became a major national focus, said Aminul, also a member of the reconstituted population council.
Bangladesh has a large population and a substantial working-age workforce, and the council could have provided policy direction on how to harness this demographic advantage.
“The problem was not only the failure to capitalise on the demographic dividend. More broadly, we failed to adopt comprehensive population-centred policies on population management, developing people into productive human resources, and finding ways to capitalise on this potential,” he added.
The rise in TFR is the visible consequence of sidelining population issues.
In 2025, the country’s TFR rose to 2.4 children per woman, up from 2.3 in 2019, according to the latest Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics with Unicef.
Bangladesh is now the only country in South Asia where fertility is rising instead of falling, adding fresh pressure on an economy already strained by high population density, food insecurity and overstretched health services.
Bangladesh’s fertility rate fell from 6.3 children per woman in 1975 to 2.3 by 2012, driven largely by the family planning programme. It then remained steady for more than a decade, until the 2025 survey put it at 2.4, the first increase in decades.
Among other factors, experts blamed policy uncertainty under the previous Awami League government and complacency following decades of declining fertility for the increase.
“The absence of any council meeting for such a long period also exposes the previous government’s approach to population policy,” Aminul said.
The interim government reconstituted the four-decade-old NPC in April last year, and the then Health Adviser Nurjahan Begum held a meeting on population related issue in June last year, but the council itself has yet to hold a meeting.
The last meeting of the NPC was held in September 2010 after 14 years.
The country got its second full-fledged population policy in 2012, whose major goal was to lower the TFR to 2.1 by increasing the prevalence of contraceptive use to 72 percent by 2015.
But none of the goals was achieved.
The use of contraceptives by married women aged 15 to 49 dropped to 58.2 percent from 62.7 percent in 2019 -- the highest in the country, according to MICS 2025. The rate was 61.8 percent in 2012-13.
The third population policy was adopted in July last year, with the aim of achieving six key objectives, including fully harnessing the potential of the country’s demographic dividend
The policy states that the NPC will provide inter-ministerial coordination and oversight for implementing the Population Policy. It will guide policy and programme implementation, ensure coordination among ministries, monitor progress, evaluate impact, and recommend revisions or amendments to the policy.
An executive committee, headed by the health minister/adviser, will communicate the council’s directives to relevant ministries and government and non-government organisations and oversee their implementation.
The Medical Education and Family Welfare Division of the Health Ministry will serve as the council’s secretariat and will convene its meetings regularly, at least once a year.
A task force, led by the division’s secretary and comprising population experts and other relevant members, will assist the secretariat by preparing technical policy documents, monitoring implementation of the council’s decisions and carrying out related activities.
Contacted, Jinnat Rehana, director general of the Directorate General of Family Planning, said the health ministry had asked them to initiate the process of reconstituting the NPC.
The council, which was reconstituted during the interim government with the then chief adviser as its chairperson, needs to be reformed again.
The work has already started, she told The Daily Star on Sunday.
Once the council is reconstituted, DG Family Planning will initiate the process of convening a meeting of the council, she added.
