# Why Global Companies Need to Help Bangladesh in a Time of Crisis.

1 Opinion August 12, 2024 Forbes ![Michael Posner](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/con_046658.jpg?itok=t24nqftK)By Michael Posner

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The ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s longtime autocratic leader, follows a predictable pattern. In the last three decades, seemingly stable but repressive regimes in places like the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos, Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu, and Egypt under Hosni Mubarak have been ousted when popular outrage suddenly reaches a boiling point. Leaders who ruled by fear quickly lost control. Sadly, the collapse of these and other autocratic regimes has not pointed toward a better future.

Building the foundations for sustainable democracies takes time, popular will, and skilled political leadership. It also depends on economic support from international financial institutions and wealthy foreign governments and investments by the private sector. Too often, rather than betting on the future, global companies have cut and run, focusing more on near-term risks than potential long-term gains. In Bangladesh, where apparel manufacturing accounts for 80% of export income, major global companies like Walmart, H&M, Inditex (Zara), and Gap have a vital role to play in continuing and even doubling down on their investments.

They need to do so despite the current governance gap in Bangladesh, a nation of 170 million people that has suffered under poor leadership. Sheikh Hasina, who has led the government for the past 16 years, is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the country’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971. Early in her tenure, Hasina was elected through a democratic process and showed some leadership potential. *The Economist* called her “Asia’s Iron Lady,” and she was repeatedly cited as one of the world’s most powerful people in surveys by *Forbes* and *TIME*. But over time, Hasina became more isolated and insecure, increasingly reliant on the dictator’s playbook. She actively undermined the independence of the judiciary, the press, and civil society, and she leaned on the state’s security forces and her party’s youth-wing vigilantes to stifle dissent.

Read the full [*Forbes* article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2024/08/12/why-global-companies-need-to-help-bangladesh-in-a-time-of-crisis/).
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*Michael Posner is the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance, Professor of Business and Society and Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.*

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