bangladesh is the 8th most populous nation crammed into a space the size of wisconsin.
mapping its population should be easy- in 2021 50 years of nationhood
well hold on for its first 25 years most of bangladesh was rural without access to electricity grids/ let alone phones -so how as that maped -person to person
my dad norman macrae was teenage navigator in allied bomber command in world war 2 stationed in myanmar before he sub-edited the economist spanning the late 1940s to around 1990- so there were airial versions of bangladesh region which in the 1800s had been the world trading bay of bengal- and my father developed a passion for sharing asia models of entrepreneurship -celebrating advance of two thirds of humanity - starting with japan in 1962- two huge innovations linked how two thirds of humans got opportunities to rise; much better quality engineering by deming applied by islands and chinese diaspora and from mid 1970s coastal china- and for most people inland borlaug's rice and crop science, and health knowhow networking of whatever could be supplied in places without electricity mapped human development miracles
which the government of bangladesh would have been able to recreate in 1971, ant the government got on with city mapping
but actually rural human development maps (apart from controling military borders) were left to grassroots networks- for over a decade bangladesh rural advancement that began as 100000 person community built round 15000 village homes coordinated by former shell oil company engineer fazle abed; he got the opportunity to map rural bangladesh once he showed unicef james grant that village mothers could save a third of all infants from ding of diarrhea id only they learnt through peer to peer process and network mapping how to mix water sugar and salts in the right proprtions to deliver the cure of oral rehydration. In the process of doing that over 6 years abed also convinced grant to fund nationwide vaccination- brac would do half most of rural; government would do other half including urban; as brac teams travelled across the nation they also explained microfranchises their 15000 families found life changing- how village businesses could produce 5 times more rice than known before; how infants in particular also needed vitamins from veggie village businesses; and a recommended franchise where one village mom per 300 families could make a living with weekly visits selling 10 most basic non prescription medicines including antiseptic and condoms- the last mile para health network; soon brac was also offering a primary school format
its relevant to ask both what knowhow had to be franchised and what things if any innovated and distributed
with the parahealth workers- wholesale /local supplying the 10 basic medicines to villages whose last miles were accessible by mud track
for rice, smartly engineered seeds tailored to locally diverse conditions; and vegetable seeds
for schools playbooks, bracs own curriculum with teaching tools typical on montesorri village formats
-effectively brac mapped the data needed to distribute across the rural nation
from 1983 another on-the ground networker grameen appeared - muhammad yunus chose to brac places where a small team of about 7 staff could each week walk to 60 circles of 60 village mothers- its always wirth remembering while rural brac means without electricity grids and infrastructure such as running water; its still a country where rural is often densely populated; there are few if any large farms; this is a very particular nation to map
what happened in 1996 is worldwide tech partners made bangladesh one of the first rural nation to collabotatively experiment with both mobile phones and solar; this offered exciting leapfroging opporunities including digital mapping and cashless banking
what happens in 2021 if the world is serious about there ever being a sustainability generation is cooperative ai is needed for the most diverse deep data mapping - the un is one network humanising ai- when you look at the big corporates of ai- west coast usa hasnt focused on maps needed for local sdg communities; china has helped asians get much more grounded views of ai sustainability maps; if the white g7 messes up cooperation with china as we go beyond covid and celebrate kerry's last chance on climate at glasgow, then we will be worse off than 1945 due ultimately to top down leadership out of usa eu russia canada britain-
conclusion
the truth up to 2020 seems to be while men speculate in walled streets women care about joyful markets - community safety, health, livelihood education, energy huans need from clean air, water feed. at least this is evident wherever billion continental asians performed the miracle of ending extreme poverty in the secd and third quarters of the un; unless national leaders value this we'll never come down from top heavy health, climate and peace crises; a question as simple as how does mapping advance through africuktural and industrial revolutions can prove to be the intel key- but will enough university vice chancellors be modest enough tp share their 2020s alumni in collaborations round dep data mapping now - the un sdgs 2020s are not some ad game- they will deterimine whether our species escapes going the way of the dodo; 2020s are the most exciting times to be alive but do thisr represnting what used to be the 7 white empires of the g8 have a clue- the way legislators have behaved most of the 21st c in washington dc as one example is quite frankly terrifying.
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