JAKARTA, INDONESIA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her speech at the three-day Asian-African conference in Jakarta, put emphasis on the South-South and Triangular cooperation.
According to the premier, despite remarkable development gains, 2.2 billion people of the world still live below the poverty level; more than 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger, and over 200 million people hard-hit by climate change.
It is, therefore, critical that Southern economies work together to overcome the development challenges to ensure pro-people, pro-poor, pro-planet strategy, she added.
‘With all these in mind, Bangladesh is organizing a “High-level South-South and Triangular Cooperation in the context of the Post-2015 Development Agenda” next month in Dhaka’, the PM informed the audience.
‘We look forward to having an engaged dialogue on all the above issues with your support, cooperation and participation.’
Upholding Bangladesh’s progress in different sectors, Sheikh Hasina said, ‘Our own development paradigm in Bangladesh is based on peace and development. We believe, empowering people, particularly women, can add significant value to the progress and prosperity of the country. We are experiencing impressive results in reducing poverty from 40 percent in 2010 to below 24 percent today.’
On the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), she said, ‘Bangladesh has already met most of the MDGs. Despite global recession, during the last six years, Bangladesh made on an average 6 percent GDP growth. Export earnings and remittance increased by three folds and foreign exchange reserve by 6.5 times’.
She believes that demographic dividend is a great strength of Bangladesh’s economy and society. ‘We are investing more in enhancing skill and capacity of our growing younger population’, she added.
‘We offer stipends to nearly 12.8 million students from poor families and free education for girls up to higher education. On the first day of this year, we distributed about 330 million free text books among the students upto secondary level all over the country. It is perhaps the biggest such undertaking anywhere in the world.’
‘Today, our people receive over 200 different services from over 5,675 Digital Centers all over the country. People in the rural areas get access to health care services from over 16,000 IT-connected Community Health Clinics and Rural Health Centers.’
‘Through many similar pro-people initiatives, my Government is making great strides to graduate Bangladesh to a middle income country by 2021 and thereby realize the dream of “Sonar Bangla” or the “Golden Bengal” of our Father of the Nation Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.’
Presenting three development issues, she said, ‘a set of transformative goals and targets are being identified in the context of the post 2015 development agenda’.
The PM put importance on the issues of fighting hunger and inequality, combating terrorism and violent extremism as well as close and sustained cooperation.
‘Durable peace and security are pre-conditions of sustainable development. Indeed, the volatile regional and global security situation, terrorism and violent extremism continue to challenge development gains and our efforts towards peace and prosperity.’
‘My Government maintains a “zero-tolerance” policy towards all forms of terrorism and extremism. Terrorists have no religion or ethnicity. We remain firm in our resolve not to allow any terrorist individual or entity to use our soil against any heinous acts.’
‘Nationally, we are steadfast in tackling the anti-liberation forces who continue to remain active in destroying the moderate, progressive and non-communal fabric of our nation. My Government is also re-enforcing the forces of democracy, secularism and women empowerment to ideologically defeat terrorism and extremism.’
To address climate change, the PM said, ‘We have introduced stress-tolerant crop varieties and set up the Climate Change Trust Fund with our own resources. However, it is not possible for a single country to tackle the climate change challenges. I look forward to seeing a strong commitment to address climate change in the region.’
She firmly believed that the South-South and triangular cooperation has immense potential to foster development, achieve peace and security, fight terrorism and violent extremism, as well as combat human trafficking and climate change consequences.
Sheikh Hasina vowed saying, ‘We could build a stable, prosperous and just world - free from oppression, intolerance, violence and extremism’.
However, a three-day Asian-African Conference has begun in Indonesia capital Jakarta on Wednesday morning with an opening speech by Indonesian president Joko Widodo.
** Asian-African Conference begins, PM joins
BDST: 1400 HRS, APR 22, 2015
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