‘Growth not possible unless there’s change in people’s livelihood’

Southeast Asian counties need to come up with better policies for education, access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), climate change, gender issues, human development, food security and overall development of rural people’s livelihood, speakers told a regional seminar yesterday.
Centre for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) hosted the seminar titled ‘Changing Rural Livelihoods in the CIRDAP Member Countries: Opportunities and Constraints’ at its auditorium yesterday.
Mokbul Morshed Ahmad of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand presented the keynote paper at the seminar and said, “Poverty is the biggest challenge for the Southeast Asian region and it should be tackled with effective policies and programmes.”
Director General of CIRDAP, Dr Durga P Paudyal presided over the seminar while SK Sing, Director (Training), CIRDAP and representatives from member countries took part in the open discussion.
Mokbul Morshed said, “The economic growth of a country isn’t possible unless there is a positive change in the livelihood of rural people.”
Mentioning the farmers as the worst victims of climate change, the AIT researcher added, “Their number is gradually declining, raising the number of poor people. The vulnerability context of people’s livelihoods is commonly influenced by external environment, which they cannot directly control. Climate change currently being a major global concern, has impacted the unpredictable frequency and intensity of climatic phenomena across the globe, of course the developing Southeast Asia.”
He also said, “Irrespective of the national income levels, poverty is consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas in all the Southeast Asian countries with the highest incidence in remote and upland areas where ethnic communities live in.”
Mokbul Morshed Ahmad suggested making strong policy for ICT infrastructure development in rural areas, which will help farmers and rural people to get updated information regarding their choices. “ICT is the tool of development,” he said.
Attending the seminar Former secretary, Dr Matiur Rahman agreed with Dr Makbul. However he said, “We have to develop the English language skill of the rural people to introduce them with ICT.”
CIRDAP DG Dr Durga P Paudyal said the seminar would enhance the knowledge on the particular issues and help formulate policies based on the suggestions for sustainable rural development.
Dr Durga informed, “International Information Technology (IT) centre will be established in Dhaka and the advanced team is coming next week.” 
 
Courtesy of The Independent