Bangladesh, 2013

I congratulate

President Ashe very warmly on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-eighth

session. I congratulate also Mr. Vuk Jeremi. for his able

leadership as President of the General Assembly at its

sixty-seventh session. I admire the Secretary-General,

Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his wisdom, bold initiatives and

successes as head of the United Nations.

Rapid technological innovations are transforming

our world. The changes involved are also creating new

conflicts within and among States. The vulnerable, the

deprived and the disadvantaged have been the most

affected. That reminds me of my father and the Father

of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,

and his visionary call, in his first appearance before the

General Assembly, in 1974, for a world order based on

peace and justice and a global economic arrangement to

free the world of poverty, hunger and aggression. As his

daughter, I am proud to have been among leaders who

adopted the Millennium Declaration in 2000, to have

been at the review of the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs) in 2010 and to be participating now

in the transition from the MDGs to the post-2015

development agenda.

I hope that this year’s theme — “The post-2015

development agenda: setting the stage” — will help us

to design a pragmatic strategy for those goals. The Open

Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals

and the newly established High-level Political Forum

are making good progress. Our experience also will

be useful in overcoming the challenges to the MDGs

by 2015 and in preparing the post-2015 development

agenda.

Bangladesh has submitted to the United Nations

a draft of the post-2015 development agenda that

covers socioeconomic and environmental goals and the

resources required for achieving them. We also held a

Global Leadership Meeting on Population Dynamics

in Dhaka, whose declaration placed human individuals

at the centre of the entire development agenda. The

declaration incorporated population growth, ageing,

urbanization and migration as the priority issues.

The meeting also strongly identified the need for

mainstreaming migration in the post-2015 development

agenda, particularly to accommodate the expected

climate migrants.

Our aim is to become a middle-income country

and to realize our Vision 2021 by setting goals that

are in line with the MDGs. We have already met or

are on track to meet Millennium Development Goals

1 through 6. Poverty has been reduced from 56.6 per

cent in 1991 to below 26 per cent today. In the past four

and a half years, the average gross domestic product

growth rate remained at 6.4 per cent; 50 million people

have joined the middle income group; export earnings

rose from $10.53 billion in 2006 to $27.03 billion

today; remittances increased from $5 billion in 2006

to $14.5 billion; foreign currency reserves improved

from $3.49 billion in 2006 to $16 billion; and power

production capacity also increased from 3,200

megawatts in 2006 to 9,059 megawatts today, to name

a few indicators.

Bangladesh is therefore often called a model of

economic development and the standard-bearer of

South Asia. Our achievements received an MDG award,

a South-South Award, a Global Diversity Award and

a food award for 2013 from the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations. Those recognitions

were achieved largely due to the practice of the

principles found in the resolution entitled “People’s

empowerment and development” (resolution 67/107),

which I submitted and which the General Assembly

adopted at its sixty-seventh session.

Using state-of-the-art digital technology, people

today are getting more than 200 services from 4,582

digitized Union Information and Service Centres.

Rural women are also receiving health-care services

from 15,500 digitally interconnected community health

clinics and union health centres, which have extended

health-care services to people’s doorsteps. Advanced

cell phone technologies are also providing services to

more than 100 million subscribers.

I believe that real national development is achievable

only through education. Education is the main driving

force for attaining the peace and prosperity of a nation

and for upholding justice, the rule of law, democratic

values and people’s empowerment. Real development

also demands the empowerment of women and their

equal participation with men in all walks of life.

Our new educational policy provides girls free

education up to higher secondary school, monthly

stipends for 11.9 million students of poor families, and

free textbooks to all students up to the secondary level.

Our policies have also helped develop women leaders

from the grass roots to the topmost level. In politics,

so far, 14,000 women have been elected to local

Government bodies and 70 to Parliament. Five women

are serving as Ministers and one as Whip. Bangladesh

is possibly the only nation today with women occupying

the position of Prime Minister, Speaker, Leader of the

Opposition and Deputy Leader, all at the same time.

The 10 per cent of posts reserved for women have helped

many succeed in reaching high positions in the judicial

and administrative branches, in diplomatic posts and in

the armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

Our policies of empowering the people, particularly

the vulnerable, include social safety-net programmes,

such as vulnerable group feeding and development;

housing and livelihood for the homeless; monthly

pensions for senior citizens, widows, destitute women,

insolvent freedom fighters and people with disabilities;

maternity allowances for a total of 4.3 million

people; and food and nutrition security for more than

1 million rural people through One House, One Farm

schemes, to name a few. The disadvantaged and the

physically challenged are provided with education,

skill development and interest-free loans for self-

employment and, in the formal sector, a 1 per cent quota

has been reserved for them. For those with autism and

other developmental disorders, a resolution on autism

spectrum disorder was introduced by Bangladesh at

the sixty-seventh session of the General Assembly

(resolution 67/82). It was adopted, unifying us all in our

quest to provide them their rightful place in the world.

However, our progress in all spheres has been

sadly held back because of climate change. Fraught

with increasing natural disasters, Bangladesh faces

a calamitous future due to global warming and sea

level rise. It is estimated that a 1˚ Celsius increase in

temperature would lead to a 1 metre rise of the sea

level, submerging one fifth of Bangladesh and forcing

30 million climate migrants to move elsewhere,

thereby creating crisis of a huge magnitude within

and beyond our borders. I therefore reiterate the call

that I made at the sixty-fourth session of the General

Assembly (see A/64/PV.4) for a legal regime to ensure

the social, cultural and economic rehabilitation of

climate migrants. I again call for a fast-track funding

mechanism for least developed countries to ensure

sustained funding for the realization of our adaptation

and mitigation action plans on climate change.

Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971

through monumental sacrifices. Our sacrifice began

with bloodshed to preserve our mother tongue,

Bangla, on 21 February 1952. At my Government’s

initiative, UNESCO immortalized that sacrifice in

1999 by UNESCO by its declaration of 21 February as

International Mother Language Day. The measures we

have taken so far in that regard include the establishment

of the International Mother Language Institute in Dhaka

and asking the United Nations to declare Bangla as one

of its official languages. I thank the United Nations for

introducing a Bangla website and radio programme,

and the United Nations Development Programme for

publishing its Asian report in Bangla.

During our 1971 war of liberation, Pakistani

occupation forces — in collaboration with their local

cohorts — perpetrated genocide, rape, arson and

crimes against humanity. More than 3 million people

sacrificed their lives and a quarter of a million women

lost their honour to achieve independence. Since then,

it has been the ardent hope and aspiration of the nation

to bring the perpetrators to justice. Accordingly, our

Government constituted two war crimes tribunals

under the international crimes tribunals act of 1973

to try them. The trials are being held with the highest

standards of judicial practices. The successful

completion of the trials would heal the wounds of

war and move Bangladesh on to the road of peace and

progress. I urge the international community to support

the trials process for the sake of justice, human rights

and the rule of law.

The anti-liberation forces have always been working

to destroy the secular nature of our nation. Under the

direct patronage of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-

Jamaat alliance Government from 2001 to 2006, they

coalesced to form terrorist outfits, which began with

bomb and grenade attacks killing people, especially

secular leaders and members of Parliament. On

21 August 2004, they made an attempt to assassinate

me by lobbing 13 grenades at a public rally that I was

addressing to protest the grenade attack on the British

High Commissioner on 21 May 2004. In that attack,

24 people were killed and more than 500 injured.

Miraculously, I survived. As members are aware, earlier

a more brutal attack was carried out, on 15 August

1975, killing my father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur

Rahman, the Father of the Nation, and 18 members of

my family. My younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, and I

survived only because we were out of the country at

that time. The gruesome attacks cemented my resolve

to eliminate terrorism and to adopt tough anti-terrorism

and anti-money-laundering acts.

At home, our Government is entrenching democracy

in order to ideologically defeat terrorism and extremism.

Our commissions on elections, anti-corruption, human

rights and information have been strengthened. During

our Government’s tenure, the elections commission has

conducted 5,777 elections, electing 63,995 persons to

the Parliament, city corporations, municipalities and

other local bodies, without receiving any complaint.

The elections commission has therefore amply proven

that it can hold free, fair and credible national elections.

With respect to foreign affairs, we aim to cement

peace by resolving outstanding issues with our

neighbours, by increasing cooperation with them

through strengthening connectivity and by maintaining

good relations with all countries of the world according

to the dictum of the Father of the Nation, “Friendship

towards all, malice towards none”.

Our commitment to global peace is proved by

our role as a top troop-contributor in United Nations

peacekeeping operations and as a Vice-Chair of the

Peacebuilding Commission. It is also reflected by

our position on disarmament and the nonproliferation

agenda. During my first term as Prime Minister, from

1996 to 2001, Bangladesh became the first South Asian

nation to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban

Treaty and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

In my current term, I am happy to again be the first in

the region to have signed the Arms Trade Treaty, and

to have acceded to the remaining instruments of the

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons at this

year’s treaty-signing event. Our role in world affairs

is based on justice and democratic values, with the

aim of ensuring international peace and security and

supporting disarmament.

The promotion of cultural expression and interfaith

and intercultural dialogue is essential for peace and

development in the post-2015 era. My personal initiatives

to disseminate those values at home and abroad were

recognized by UNESCO in 2012, when we were awarded

the Cultural Diversity Medal. Culture is integral to the

identity of every State Member of the United Nations.

Therefore, my country has proposed — to UNESCO and

in the General Assembly’s thematic debate on culture

and development — including culture as a theme of the

post-2015 development agenda. I reiterate that call here

today and request the support of all present.

Bangladesh is hampered by resource constraints

and inadequate external assistance. To achieve the

MDGs by 2015 and to implement the post-2015

development goals, we need our development partners

to honour their pledges to contribute 0.7 per cent of

gross national product (GNP) as official development

assistance (ODA) and 0.2 per cent of GNP as ODA to

the least developed countries (LDCs). I urge them to

also grant LDCs duty-free and quota-free access to

their markets, as well as an equal voice in the Bretton

Woods and international financial institutions and

the free movement of labour. The implementation of

part IV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

is also essential for the benefit of both sending and

receiving countries.

The elaboration of the post-2015 development

agenda is a daunting task for all States Members of the

United Nations. We must be united in agreeing on a

common framework for the development agenda that

would fulfil our aspiration to build a just, prosperous

and sustainable world where no person or nation is

left behind. Bangladesh, representing 160 million

progressive and resilient people, will lead those efforts

up front.

The globalized world has unique complexities

that sometimes threaten peace. Justice-based policies

are imperative to eradicate such threats. Justice is

the panacea for peace that enables development and

progress, which in turn dispel the challenges posed to

freedom, democracy, human rights, the environment

and the equitable sharing of transboundary resources

such as water, among others, as well as the challenges

posed by climate change.

Our resolution on the culture of peace, introduced

at the Assembly every year, is drafted in that spirit and

is always adopted by consensus. It conveys the message

of mutual respect for peoples and nations in our bid

for a world of peace and promise. I believe that we all

aspire to such a world for our future generations.