The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country name was spelled originally) was the name for two benefit concerts organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at noon and at 7pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The shows were organised to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and during the Bangladesh Liberation War and what came to be known as the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. The Concert for Bangladesh was also the title of the accompanying live album, a boxed three-record set, released in December 1971 (January 1972 in Britain), and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972.

The event was the first-ever benefit concert of such a magnitude^[1] and featured a supergroup of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-BeatleRingo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and another legend of Indian music, Ali Akbar Khan, performed a separate set. Decades later, Shankar would say of the overwhelming success of the event: "In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh. It was a fantastic occasion ..."^[2]

The concert raised close to US$250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF. Although the project was subsequently marred by financial problems − a result of the pioneering nature of the venture − the Concert for Bangladesh is recognised as a highly successful and influential humanitarian aid project, generating both awareness and considerable funds as well as providing valuable lessons and inspiration for aid projects that followed, notably Live Aid.

As with the live album, sales of the 2005 DVD release of the film continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.^[3]