Continued global support to attain SDGs

Assistance from different development partners in the form of loan and grant is one of the major sources of our resource base. Though foreign assistance is declining, the volume is on steady rise in absolute terms. Thus, one of the key strategies of the Seventh Plan will be to ensure effective partnership with development partners to ensure better use and results of foreign assistance

The prime target of Bangladesh is broad-based development and the country has been making all out efforts to attain this with special emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
To this end Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has sought the support of the development partners and asked the developed countries to come forward to support the country in achieving the targets of SDGs.
The PM made this call while addressing the inaugural session of the two-day Bangladesh Develop­ment Forum 2015 on November 17. The PM said the government is working with specific plans and programmes to achieve the SDGs by ensuring the effective use of resources.
Attaining the SDGs is a difficult task in view of the climate change and other challenges to development.
The donors  pointed out three major challenges facing Bangladesh and said:
(a) The country has to raise its investment-GDP ratio to accelerate economic growth to 7-8 per cent from the average of 6 per cent.
(b) They also stressed that Bangladesh would have to generate more revenue from domestic sources.
Bangladesh is a country of huge potential and has been successful in many areas of economic and social development despite various challenges and constraints.
(a) It has brought down poverty from 56.7 per cent in 1991 to 24.4 per cent today and (b) Has been able to cut down hardcore poverty significantly to 7.9 per cent.  
(c) This country is pursuing an inclusive growth strategy to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed one by 2041.
(d) It will be a matter of great encouragement if Bangladesh gets support from its development partners in its development pursuit.
The implementation of the SDGs would require more resources and to meet that requirement the engagement of development partners and private sectors - both domestic and external - in its development pursuits is very important.
Stringent conditions within the global climate financing mechanism are becoming major barriers to the use of climate funds according to the needs and priorities of the country. So, the conditions of the funds should be revised.
Above all, the development partners should extend necessary support to Bangladesh to enable it to attain the goal of sustainable development.
Just a few weeks ago, the international community endorsed the SDGs while building on its success achieved in the MDG regime, and Bangladesh aims to realise the SDGs. “I hope this Forum will reflect on how to achieve the SDGs by providing the government with prudent and effective recommendations,” said  Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at this conference.
Noting that implementation of the SDGs would require more resources, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina  said here the government underscores the importance of engagement of development partners and private sectors of both domestic and external in its development pursuits.
Aiming to garner foreign direct investment (FDI), her government is currently working to establish 100 designated economic zones in different parts of the country
Bangladesh is one to the most vulnerable countries  that suffer and would continue to suffer from global warming and climate change. Climate financing is yet to reach its full potentials despite some strong efforts at the international level.
Stringent conditions within the global climate financing mechanism are becoming major barriers to the use of climate fund according to the needs and priorities of the country “We recommend a re-examine of the stringent conditions of the funds to allow the climate change vulnerable countries to take benefits of it,’’ said the PM.
Regional, sub-regional and bilateral cooperation in the Asia-Pacific area are essential for balanced development and ensuring a win- win situation for all. Bangladesh has taken a lead in building regional cooperation processes such as SAARC, BIMSTEC and BCIM-EC. However, lack of adequate finances, skilled manpower and quality teachers may hinder achieving of the UN-designated SDGs in Bangladesh, especially in health and education fields.
BRAC founder-chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, also expressed his concern over the declining trend in government allocation both in health and education sectors. He also suggested to the government to take some special programmes to produce quality teachers. Despite remarkable progress in enrollment of primary education and gender parity, still many children remain out of school and leave school without basic literacy.
The SDGs list 169 targets across 17 goals to be achieved by 2030. Of these, 14 targets in total are directly related to the Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) sectors.“To implement the goals of SDGs, The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHW) will require a huge amount of funds.
Public health spending comprises less than 1.0 per cent of the GDP and the total health expenditure is 3.5 per cent as of GDP.Our per-capita health spending is about $27 which is even lower than that of neighbouring Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka.
To overcome the shortcomings, establishing strong partnership and collaboration between government and development partners, increasing government budget for health and aid flow from donors was  emphasised.
They also called for introducing health insurance, health-protection scheme and redesigning DSF (Demand Side Financing) for poor and marginalized people.
 Government-NGO and private-sector collaboration for improving ESP (Essential Service Packages) with special emphasis on long- acting Family Planning Services also came up as a suggestion.
To achieve the goal in education, improvements are expected in curriculum and textbooks, introducing need-based pre-vocational programmes in general education system, development partners coordination through SWAp (Sector Wide Approach) in secondary, madrasah and technical education under a common programe framework for more effective coordina­tion among various stakehol­ders, especially among various ministries and departments.
The government sought more support from international partners to help attain its ambitious development goals for the next five years and beyond, while donors pointed out three major challenges facing Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has to raise its investment-GDP ratio to accelerate economic growth to 7-8 percent from the average of 6 percent, Increasing investment faces challenges from three aspects: energy, infrastructure and competitiveness.
(a) “Pricing policy has to reform to attract investment in the energy sector, while financing is required in the infrastructure sector. For arranging financing in the infrastructure, the tax-GDP ratio has to increase. To do so, the VAT laws have to be implemented,” .
In order to improve competiti­veness, the barriers outlined in the WB's latest Doing Business Report have to be removed. Otherwise, foreign investors would not come.
The IMF official recommended the implementation of the new VAT laws as soon as possible. In future, Bangladesh would have to generate more revenue from domestic sources.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith acknowledged the plans as ambitious. “No doubt, this is an ambitious target but the consistency of our development performance in the last six years prompts us to seriously strive for achieving this new target.”
He said while much of the additional resources would need to come from the national savings, there will also be a need for drawing on foreign savings.

Four Major Challenges:
Continued proliferation of standalone projects and heavy aid fragmentation; less vibrant coordination between sector-level working groups resulting in less alignment with sectoral plan; low harmonisation and low use of country systems; and capacity deficits and implementation lag.
Robert Watkins, UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh, said the economic growth achieved by Bangladesh was good, but inequality has to reduce and attention has to be given to governance and public safety.
Prof Shamsul Alam, a member of the Planning Commission, said Bangladesh's target of becoming a higher middle income country with zero hunger calls for huge investments from both internal and external sources. It is estimated that Bangladesh needs about $9 billion in additional investment in major infrastructure projects per year to sustain growth at a higher level.
To secure the GDP growth rates projected for the Seventh Plan, the investment rate will need to expand from 28.9 percent in FY2015 to around 34.4 percent by FY 2020. And the country would require $409 billion in investment to attain the Plan. Assistance from different develop­ment partners in the form of loan and grant is one of the major sources of the country's resource base. Though foreign assistance is declining, the volume is on steady rise in absolute terms.
“Thus, one of the key strategies of the Seventh Plan will be to ensure effective partnership with develop­ment partners to ensure better use and results of foreign assistance.”
Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman sustained a steady spell of six-plus percent annual average real GDP growth amid global slowdown.
He, however, talked about a couple of aspects that the government will need to focus particularly in upholding and further strengthening the growth momentum over the next five years.
After decades of globalisation-driven growth, global trade growth had now slowed, and was actually trailing global output growth.
“This indicates that the potential for export-led growth will be weaker and harder to realise for our export sector unless we take advantage of upcoming new opportunities in markets for goods and services that are produced using environmentally sustainable green output processes and practices.”
The governor touched upon a number of areas the government has taken for green transition of output processes and practices in the businesses.
“These are only small initial steps, with lots more to do in our intended countrywide transition to environ­mentally sustainable output practices and lifestyles.”
Secondly, the more subdued prospects of export-led growth means that the country needs to foster more in domestic demand-led growth.  
Kingo Toyoda, deputy director-general, International Cooperation Bureau of the foreign affairs ministry of Japan, said he sincerely hoped that all the stakeholders would strengthen the partnership to address develop­ment challenges that Bangladesh faced.
He said Japan would assist Bangladesh in establishing a growth belt along the Bay of Bengal through developing economic infrastructure, improving investment environment and fostering connectivity.
As a major development partner of Bangladesh, Japan aims at accelerating sustainable economic growth with equity and bringing people out of poverty.
“In the area of governance, Japan appreciates Bangladesh's efforts under its National Integrity Strategy. Transparency and accountability are indispensable for further develop­ment of the country.” Security is a prerequisite for smooth implementa­tion of assistance activities by the development partners.
Equitable distribution of wealth as a major prequisite for high and inclusive economic growth. Such inclusive economic growth can be ensured through land ownership reforms, tax reforms, public service management reforms, quality education and expansion of social safety net.

The writer is an economic analyst, columnist. E-mail: [email protected]

Continued global support to attain SDGs

Assistance from different development partners in the form of loan and grant is one of the major sources of our resource base. Though foreign assistance is declining, the volume is on steady rise in absolute terms. Thus, one of the key strategies of the Seventh Plan will be to ensure effective partnership with development partners to ensure better use and results of foreign assistance

The prime target of Bangladesh is broad-based development and the country has been making all out efforts to attain this with special emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has sought the support of the development partners and asked the developed countries to come forward to support the country in achieving the targets of SDGs. The PM made this call while addressing the inaugural session of the two-day Bangladesh Development Forum 2015 on November 17. The PM said the government is working with specific plans and programmes to achieve the SDGs by ensuring the effective use of resources. Attaining the SDGs is a difficult task in view of the climate change and other challenges to development. The donors pointed out three major challenges facing Bangladesh and said: (a) The country has to raise its investment-GDP ratio to accelerate economic growth to 7-8 per cent from the average of 6 per cent. (b) They also stressed that Bangladesh would have to generate more revenue from domestic sources. Bangladesh is a country of huge potential and has been successful in many areas of economic and social development despite various challenges and constraints. (a) It has brought down poverty from 56.7 per cent in 1991 to 24.4 per cent today and (b) Has been able to cut down hardcore poverty significantly to 7.9 per cent. (c) This country is pursuing an inclusive growth strategy to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed one by 2041. (d) It will be a matter of great encouragement if Bangladesh gets support from its development partners in its development pursuit. The implementation of the SDGs would require more resources and to meet that requirement the engagement of development partners and private sectors - both domestic and external - in its development pursuits is very important. Stringent conditions within the global climate financing mechanism are becoming major barriers to the use of climate funds according to the needs and priorities of the country. So, the conditions of the funds should be revised. Above all, the development partners should extend necessary support to Bangladesh to enable it to attain the goal of sustainable development. Just a few weeks ago, the international community endorsed the SDGs while building on its success achieved in the MDG regime, and Bangladesh aims to realise the SDGs. I hope this Forum will reflect on how to achieve the SDGs by providing the government with prudent and effective recommendations, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at this conference. Noting that implementation of the SDGs would require more resources, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said here the government underscores the importance of engagement of development partners and private sectors of both domestic and external in its development pursuits. Aiming to garner foreign direct investment (FDI), her government is currently working to establish 100 designated economic zones in different parts of the country Bangladesh is one to the most vulnerable countries that suffer and would continue to suffer from global warming and climate change. Climate financing is yet to reach its full potentials despite some strong efforts at the international level. Stringent conditions within the global climate financing mechanism are becoming major barriers to the use of climate fund according to the needs and priorities of the country We recommend a re-examine of the stringent conditions of the funds to allow the climate change vulnerable countries to take benefits of it, said the PM. Regional, sub-regional and bilateral cooperation in the Asia-Pacific area are essential for balanced development and ensuring a win- win situation for all. Bangladesh has taken a lead in building regional cooperation processes such as SAARC, BIMSTEC and BCIM-EC. However, lack of adequate finances, skilled manpower and quality teachers may hinder achieving of the UN-designated SDGs in Bangladesh, especially in health and education fields. BRAC founder-chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, also expressed his concern over the declining trend in government allocation both in health and education sectors. He also suggested to the government to take some special programmes to produce quality teachers. Despite remarkable progress in enrollment of primary education and gender parity, still many children remain out of school and leave school without basic literacy. The SDGs list 169 targets across 17 goals to be achieved by 2030. Of these, 14 targets in total are directly related to the Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) sectors.To implement the goals of SDGs, The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHW) will require a huge amount of funds. Public health spending comprises less than 1.0 per cent of the GDP and the total health expenditure is 3.5 per cent as of GDP.Our per-capita health spending is about $27 which is even lower than that of neighbouring Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka. To overcome the shortcomings, establishing strong partnership and collaboration between government and development partners, increasing government budget for health and aid flow from donors was emphasised. They also called for introducing health insurance, health-protection scheme and redesigning DSF (Demand Side Financing) for poor and marginalized people. Government-NGO and private-sector collaboration for improving ESP (Essential Service Packages) with special emphasis on long- acting Family Planning Services also came up as a suggestion. To achieve the goal in education, improvements are expected in curriculum and textbooks, introducing need-based pre-vocational programmes in general education system, development partners coordination through SWAp (Sector Wide Approach) in secondary, madrasah and technical education under a common programe framework for more effective coordination among various stakeholders, especially among various ministries and departments. The government sought more support from international partners to help attain its ambitious development goals for the next five years and beyond, while donors pointed out three major challenges facing Bangladesh. Bangladesh has to raise its investment-GDP ratio to accelerate economic growth to 7-8 percent from the average of 6 percent, Increasing investment faces challenges from three aspects: energy, infrastructure and competitiveness. (a) Pricing policy has to reform to attract investment in the energy sector, while financing is required in the infrastructure sector. For arranging financing in the infrastructure, the tax-GDP ratio has to increase. To do so, the VAT laws have to be implemented, . In order to improve competitiveness, the barriers outlined in the WBs latest Doing Business Report have to be removed. Otherwise, foreign investors would not come. The IMF official recommended the implementation of the new VAT laws as soon as possible. In future, Bangladesh would have to generate more revenue from domestic sources. Finance Minister AMA Muhith acknowledged the plans as ambitious. No doubt, this is an ambitious target but the consistency of our development performance in the last six years prompts us to seriously strive for achieving this new target. He said while much of the additional resources would need to come from the national savings, there will also be a need for drawing on foreign savings. Four Major Challenges: Continued proliferation of standalone projects and heavy aid fragmentation; less vibrant coordination between sector-level working groups resulting in less alignment with sectoral plan; low harmonisation and low use of country systems; and capacity deficits and implementation lag. Robert Watkins, UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh, said the economic growth achieved by Bangladesh was good, but inequality has to reduce and attention has to be given to governance and public safety. Prof Shamsul Alam, a member of the Planning Commission, said Bangladeshs target of becoming a higher middle income country with zero hunger calls for huge investments from both internal and external sources. It is estimated that Bangladesh needs about $9 billion in additional investment in major infrastructure projects per year to sustain growth at a higher level. To secure the GDP growth rates projected for the Seventh Plan, the investment rate will need to expand from 28.9 percent in FY2015 to around 34.4 percent by FY 2020. And the country would require $409 billion in investment to attain the Plan. Assistance from different development partners in the form of loan and grant is one of the major sources of the countrys resource base. Though foreign assistance is declining, the volume is on steady rise in absolute terms. Thus, one of the key strategies of the Seventh Plan will be to ensure effective partnership with development partners to ensure better use and results of foreign assistance. Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman sustained a steady spell of six-plus percent annual average real GDP growth amid global slowdown. He, however, talked about a couple of aspects that the government will need to focus particularly in upholding and further strengthening the growth momentum over the next five years. After decades of globalisation-driven growth, global trade growth had now slowed, and was actually trailing global output growth. This indicates that the potential for export-led growth will be weaker and harder to realise for our export sector unless we take advantage of upcoming new opportunities in markets for goods and services that are produced using environmentally sustainable green output processes and practices. The governor touched upon a number of areas the government has taken for green transition of output processes and practices in the businesses. These are only small initial steps, with lots more to do in our intended countrywide transition to environmentally sustainable output practices and lifestyles. Secondly, the more subdued prospects of export-led growth means that the country needs to foster more in domestic demand-led growth. Kingo Toyoda, deputy director-general, International Cooperation Bureau of the foreign affairs ministry of Japan, said he sincerely hoped that all the stakeholders would strengthen the partnership to address development challenges that Bangladesh faced. He said Japan would assist Bangladesh in establishing a growth belt along the Bay of Bengal through developing economic infrastructure, improving investment environment and fostering connectivity. As a major development partner of Bangladesh, Japan aims at accelerating sustainable economic growth with equity and bringing people out of poverty. In the area of governance, Japan appreciates Bangladeshs efforts under its National Integrity Strategy. Transparency and accountability are indispensable for further development of the country. Security is a prerequisite for smooth implementation of assistance activities by the development partners. Equitable distribution of wealth as a major prequisite for high and inclusive economic growth. Such inclusive economic growth can be ensured through land ownership reforms, tax reforms, public service management reforms, quality education and expansion of social safety net. The writer is an economic analyst, columnist. E-mail: [email protected]