Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Sunday termed poverty, extreme poverty and unemployment as the main barriers to development of Bangladesh as well as developing countries in Asia.
‘Asian countries including Bangladesh must have to address poverty and unemployment problems of people in order to ensure effective development in the post-2015,’ he said at the inaugural ceremony of the three-day ‘Asia workshop on the global partnership for effective development cooperation : Links to the post-2015 development agenda’ in the capital.
The poor, very poor and unemployed people—the three groups—should be focused in the post-2015 development agenda, he said.
Economic Relations Division in association with UNDP supported Aid Effectiveness Project organised the workshop at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the city aiming to strengthen effective development partnerships for better development results in post-Millennium Development Goals era.
The aim of the workshop is to assist the Asian countries to enhance development cooperation, particularly in the context of transitioning from the MDG to the post-2015 development agenda.
The findings of the workshop will be presented in the upcoming global partnership ministerial meeting to be held in Mexico in 2014 to provide feedback from Asia to influence the post-MDG agenda and strengthen support towards the implementation of the Busan partnership.
Muhith said that countries like Bangladesh would have to emphasise on increasing productive capacity, maintaining economic stability in future to eliminate poverty and unemployment.
It is also important to enhance domestic resource mobilisation along with getting Official Development Assistance from international communities, he added.
Muhith also emphasised on bringing change in the existing administrative structure of Bangladesh to expedite the process of eliminating poverty and unemployment.
At the programme, planning minister AK Khandker expressed dissatisfaction on the lower disbursement of ODA that were supposed to be provided by developed countries to the least developed countries.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a platform of rich nations, committed to provide 0.7 per cent of their gross national income to the LDCs but in 2012 ODA disbursement stood at only 0.29 per cent of their GNI, he said.
UNDP resident representative Neal Walker said that ODA must remain as an important part of the development assistance.
Walker, also the co-chair of the Local Consultative Group, a platform of Bangladesh government and its development partners, called upon the development partners to uphold their commitments of aid for the LDCs that they made.
ERD secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad said that Bangladesh was working on formulating an aid policy aiming to graduate the country from aid dependence one.
ERD additional secretary Arastoo Khan, among others, spoke at the programme.
Government representatives from a number of countries in the Asia pacific region including South Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Myanmar, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Timor Liste, members of the global partnership steering committee and representatives from regional platforms attended the workshop.
-With New Age input
