Foreign Minister Dipu Moni on Saturday called for rationalisation of distribution of aid that many donors allocate based on political, economic and strategic interests.
She made the call while she was addressing as co-chair an interactive policy dialogue on quality and quantity of ODA for LDCs and their debt problem in Lisbon, says a press release.
She also called for improving quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA), and rectification of the huge imbalances in terms of ODA per capita among the least developed countries (LDCs).
Dipu Moni highlighted the concern of gradual decrease in grant in the ODA mix and underscored the need for minimising transaction cost of ODA and making ODA disbursement and delivery flexible and predictable.
On external debt situation, she underlined that diversion of money from poverty alleviation initiatives and programmes to service debts has its own economic and social implications.
She stressed the need for full and comprehensive debt relief measures for highly indebted countries and for a case-by-case debt relief for countries like Bangladesh.
Dipu Moni asked for greater labour mobility so that LDCs can benefit from remittance sent by the migrants as an innovative source of finance.
She demanded that rights of migrant workers must be ensured and called for reduction in migration costs. She remarked that greater market access could be the best form of outside support for LDCs.
The FM also asked for early conclusion of the Doha Round.
She underscored the need to secure agreements on free movement of service providers and extension of exemptions of the LDCs from the obligations of patenting pharmaceutical products under the Trade Related Aspect of Intellectual Property (TRIP) right agreement.
She attended a programme of the expatriate Bangladeshi community in Lisbon and exchanged views with them on their livelihoods, working conditions and concerns.
Dipu Moni goes to London today after attending the two-day ministerial meeting on mobilisation of financial resources for LDCs.
