Bangladesh will achieve developed country status in due time because of its impressive growth rate and social innovations, said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen. “Therefore, we need partnerships: regional partnership, G2G partnership, government and business partnership, partnership between government and academic plus NGOs, think tank and philanthropic bodies. We also need South-South and North cooperation as well as innovative finances and technology to achieve the goals,” he added.
The foreign minister came up with the observations while addressing the inaugural session of the three-day 'Dhaka Global Dialogue 2019' in the city on Monday. “We consider the SDG implementation as a continuation of our MDG efforts,” he said adding that Bangladesh was one of the few countries who attained almost all of the MDG targets.
Realisation of the MDGs helped Bangladesh towards graduation from the LDC status, fulfilling all three criteria for graduation, he mentioned. “Now we intend to do the same with SDG implementation also. For this, we have undertaken a three-pronged approach,” he stated, adding these are mobilisation of resources, both fund and technology, capacity building and people’s empowerment at all stage of decision making process.
Momen said, “We understand, implementation of SDGs requires much greater, long-term and sustained flow of resources.” The preliminary assessment reveals that Bangladesh requires around $930 billion additional synchronized expenses for full implementation of the SDGs, he informed.
“Moreover, to face the upcoming advent of 4th Industrial Revolution, a dramatic technological innovation, we are building partnerships, where government, private sector, academia, community and civil society -- all are working together,” he said. Momen informed Bangladesh is now the 2nd largest pool of ICT freelancers in the world, almost 600,000. “We are truly living in the Asian century. The South Asian, South East and Far Eastern countries are now growing at a much faster rate than all other countries in the world,” he said.
However, it is not only the rate of growth, but also the sustainability and just distribution of benefit of that growth that makes these fast growing economies so important, he added. On the Rohingyas issue, he said, “You all know, out of humanitarian consideration and to avert a disaster, Bangladesh Prime Minister gave shelter to 1.1 million forcefully displaced persecuted Rohingyas of Myanmar.”
Now, it is the responsibility of the global community, including our neighbours, to do more to ensure their quick and sustainable repatriation and reintegration in Myanmar, he said adding this is an issue created by Myanmar and solution also lies with them. Voluntary return of the Rohingyas to their homes in the Rakhine state in safety, security and dignity is a crying need of the hour, he said.
