Team Leader: Dr. Monzur Hossain, Senior Research Fellow, BIDS

Executive Summary

Land availability as well as its sustainable management has important bearings on overall development in general, and food security, business development and human habitation in particular. Land scarcity relative to demand is showing up in accelerating increases in land prices, especially in urban areas including Dhaka. The development of an organized and efficient land market is a key requirement for achieving the development goals of Bangladesh. The small area and rapid increase of population characterize Bangladesh with the lowest land-man ratio in the world, which is estimated to be 0.06 hectares (ha) per person (FAO, 2013). The situation is likely to deteriorate further with a growing demand for non-agricultural land. As a consequence, the rate of land transfer and land conversion is also very high in Bangladesh. The agricultural land, which is now about 84 percent of total land, has been depleting at a rate of almost 1 percent per annum. A substantial area of farmland is being eaten up every year by new homes, roads, educational institutions, industries, etc. The issues of conversion along with land degradation due to climate change effect give rise to necessity of proper land management for planned use of scarce land, and an efficient land administration is deemed to be instrumental to this end.