Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives- LGRDC ministry will lead initiating to develop a national volunteer framework for fostering volunteerism in Bangladesh to support Sustainable Development Goals- SDGs’. Md. Tazul Islam MP, Minister, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives stressed at a live talk on 'Post-Covid-19 Socio-Economic Recovery: Role of Youth and Volunteers’, organized by UNV Bangladesh and Aparajeo Bangla.
Md. Tazul Islam MP, spoke at the event as the Chief Guest. He termed the event as time-befitting and underscored on the necessity of planning on post-covid socio-economic recovery.
Sultana Afroz, Secretary and CEO, Public Private Partnership Authority Bangladesh, Prime Minister's Office, Md. Akhter Hossain, Secretary, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Hasin Jahan, Country Director, WaterAid Bangladesh and Md. Aktar Uddin, Country Coordinator, UNV Bangladesh spoke as panelists. Mahmood Menon, Founder and Editor, Aparajeo Bangla moderated the session.
Sultana Afroz emphasized on mainstreaming volunteerism in the public and private sector as a cross-cutting development tool. She assured on working on volunteerism for ingesting into the policies of the private sectors. She also fully supported to formulate a policy on volunteerism and assured to provide all possible support in this regard.
Md. Akhter Hossain shared how the government is executing different skill developing and resource mobilizing schemes to engage the youth in the development process. He also added that his ministry will provide all support for formulation of a national volunteer policy.
Hasin Jahan and Md. Aktar Uddin pointed out the need of a structured volunteer database in a digital platform through which mobilizing youth and volunteers according to their skills can be extremely fruitful to achieve SDGs. They also stressed on need a volunteer policy for Bangladesh.
Honorable Minister Md. Tazul Islam MP, underscored to form an inter-ministerial committee, led by the LGRDC Ministry, along with UN and other relevant organizations for initiating discussions on developing a national policy on volunteerism.
Youth volunteers shared their volunteering experiences, challenges and expectations. Experts and analysts from the audience put their comments and notes on the topic. Necessity of formulation of policy and national framework for volunteerism came out of their valuable discussion.