Research

During the 1990s, the policy makers of the Bangladesh health sector recognized that despite massive growth and appreciable development of the sector, a remarkable void in its capacity exists: the country does not have any capacity of its own to deal with health economic issues or create health economists from within the country. It was realized that without use of health economic theories and tools, resources cannot be efficiently utilized and inefficiency and wastage in resource use can soon lead to serious consequences; this can desist the sector to grow, or even maintain the progress it has so far accomplished. Then, initially the sector tried to fulfill the demand for health economists by way of sending some officials abroad to receive training in HE and employing health economists from abroad. These schemes immediately appeared as highly expensive and also ineffective and unsustainable. Against this backdrop, the Institute of Health Economics was created in 1998 in the University of Dhaka at the initiative of the MOHFW.