Bangladesh, 2014

I warmly

congratulate Mr. Sam Kutesa on his election as the

President of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth

session. I also congratulate Ambassador John Ashe

for his leadership of the Assembly at its sixty-eighth

session. My appreciation also goes to Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon for his stewardship of our endeavours to

realize our common vision of a world of peace, dignity

and well-being for all.

Four decades ago, in his maiden speech before

the General Assembly, the Father of our nation of

Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

(see A/PV.2243), described his vision for a global

order, saying that the Bengali nation is pledge-bound

to establish a global order, one based on peaceful

coexistence, social justice and freedom from poverty,

hunger, exploitation and aggression. That vision

continues to guide Bangladesh’s national development

policies and our engagement in global affairs.

We gather at a time when the global development

discourse finds itself at an important juncture. As the

achievement of the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) approaches its deadline, the global community

is engaged in framing a transformative development

agenda for 2016-2030. The theme for this session of the

General Assembly is therefore quite timely. Bangladesh

believes that our deliberations will help us to arrive at a

balanced, pragmatic and ambitious agenda.

We cannot achieve sustainable development in the

absence of durable peace and security. The volatile

global security situation continues to pose significant

challenges to international development. Bangladesh

believes that a threat to peace anywhere is a threat to

humankind as a whole.

In keeping with our position of principle, we

continue to express our full solidarity with the

Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle for self-

determination. We condemn the systematic killing of

hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and

children, by Israel during the recent offensive in Gaza.

We seek a permanent solution to that long-standing

conflict through the creation of an independent and

viable State of Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders

and with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

Bangladesh strongly believes in the centrality

and legitimacy of the United Nations as the custodian

of global peace, security and development. Our

commitment to international peace is manifest in our

support for the flagship resolution 68/125 on a culture of

peace and non-violence. Our peace leadership is further

reaffirmed through our support to the United Nations as

one of the top troop- and police-contributing countries

in the Organization’s peacekeeping endeavours. We

have so far contributed 128,133 peacekeepers in 54

peace missions. Bangladesh proudly contributes the

highest number of women police to United Nations

peacekeeping, commensurate with our credentials in

the empowerment of women.

Terrorism and extremism remain major impediments

on the road to global peace and development. My

Government maintains a zero-tolerance policy with

respect to all forms of terrorism, violent extremism,

radicalization and faith-based politics. We remain firm

in our resolve not to allow any terrorist individual or

entity to use our territory against any State.

The anti-liberation forces remain active in

attempting to destroy the progressive and secular

fabric of our nation. They resort to religious militancy

and violent extremism at every opportunity. Under

the direct patronage of the Bangladesh Nationalist

Party-Jamaat-e-Islami Alliance Government from

2001 to 2006, they coalesced to form terrorist groups

that carried out bomb and grenade attacks and killed

secular political leaders and activists. Those gruesome

attacks cemented my resolve to create a strong legal and

regulatory regime for countering terrorism, including

the adoption of the amended Anti-terrorism Act of 2013

and the Money Laundering Prevention Act of 2012.

My Government is also seeking to entrench

democracy, secularism and women’s empowerment in

order to defeat terrorism and extremism ideologically.

We have also significantly enhanced transparency and

accountability in governance by strengthening our

election, anti-corruption, human rights and information

commissions. To uphold peace and the rule of law and

end the culture of impunity, my Government remains

pledge-bound to bring to justice the perpetrators of

war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and acts of

genocide committed during our 1971 war of liberation.

The highly transparent, impartial and independent

international crimes tribunals in Bangladesh have

already completed the trials of a few key criminals

who carried out heinous crimes against humanity. We

hope for the international community’s full support for

our people’s desire for this long-awaited rendering of

justice.

Our Government has integrated the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) into our national

five-year plan and Vision 2021, a people-centric

programme that aspires to transform Bangladesh into

a knowledge-based, technology-driven middle-income

country by 2021. Bangladesh has already met or is on

track to meet the first six MDGs. Poverty rates have

fallen from 57 per cent in 1991 to below 25 per cent

today. During the past five years, our gross domestic

product (GDP) growth rate remained at 6.2 per cent,

despite a global recession. Our export earnings grew

more than threefold from around $10.53 billion in

2006 to more than $30.5 billion for the last fiscal year.

Remittances have also almost tripled, from $5 billion

in 2006 to $14.5 billion, while our foreign currency

reserves jumped six and a half times, from $3.49 billion

in 2006 to $22 billion today.

In an effort to unlock Bangladesh’s development

potential, we have undertaken some massive

infrastructure and connectivity projects. We have begun

work on a 6.15-kilometre bridge over the great river

Padma using our own resources. We will soon begin

developing a deep-sea port in Sonadia, Chittagong. We

are already working on upgrading our road and rail

infrastructure, including expressways and river tunnels.

We have reached agreements with friendly countries

such as India, China and Japan to develop large-scale

power plants to meet our growing demands by 2021. We

are developing 18 economic zones around the country

to enable potential investors to invest in Bangladesh,

especially in the context of our growing integration

into the regional connectivity framework. Bangladesh

enjoys a clear demographic dividend, with two thirds

of its workforce young, employable and capable of

remaining economically active till 2031. One of our

policy priorities is investing in skills development for

our increasingly youthful population.

With a view to developing a knowledge-based

society, we are rapidly building the capabilities of our

country and people in the area of modern information

and communications technologies. Our people currently

receive more than 200 types of service from more than

4,500 union service and information centres, while rural

populations have access to health-care services from

more than 15,000 information-technology-connected

community health clinics and union health centres.

These networks enable us to bring various crucial

public services to our people’s homes at an affordable

cost. Bangladesh has 117 million SIM cards with more

than 78 per cent telephone penetration and 50 million

Internet connections.

Bangladesh’s strides in education have enabled

us to achieve the MDG targets of ensuring universal

primary school enrolment and gender parity in primary

and secondary schools. Our Government provides

students with a free education up to the twelfth grade

and provides 12.8 million students, 75 per cent of them

girls, from poor families with monthly stipends from

primary level to graduation. Each year we distribute

around 318 million free textbooks to all students up to

the secondary level. We are now focusing on improving

the quality of education to enable our boys and girls to

acquire essential life skills and grow up with a truly

global outlook.

For us, sustainable development implies the

empowerment of women and their equal participation

with men in all walks of life. Our efforts to promote

women’s empowerment by enhancing their access

to productive resources and representation at the

national and local level are producing visible results.

The Government’s pragmatic policies have helped

leadership by women grow from the grass-roots to the

highest levels. Bangladesh may be the only country

today where women concurrently occupy the positions

of Prime Minister, Speaker, leader of the opposition

and deputy leader. In the judiciary, administration, the

civil service, the armed forces and law enforcement

agencies, 10 per cent of posts are reserved for women,

as are 60 per cent of primary-school teaching posts.

With a view to ensuring equality, my Government

has established numerous social safety-net programmes

that cover more than 24 per cent of the population,

notably feeding and development programmes for

vulnerable groups; the Ashrayan poverty alleviation

project, which provides housing and income generation

for the homeless; monthly pensions for senior citizens,

widows, destitute women and the disabled; maternity

allowances; and food and nutrition security for rural

dwellers through one-house, one-farm schemes aimed

at promoting family farming. Persons with disabilities

are provided with education, skills development and

interest-free credit for self-employment, with a 1 per

cent jobs quota reserved for them in the formal sector.

The MDGs have been the most successful global

anti-poverty push in history. It is due to them that the

world is seeing 50 per cent less poverty than in 1990,

as well as more girls in school, fewer children dying

and more people with access to safe drinking water

and sanitation. However, progress has been uneven and

unequal within and among countries and regions. Sadly,

more than 1.3 billion people still live in abject poverty.

As we reflect on our new and emerging development

challenges, eradication of poverty must remain at the

centre of the post-2015 agenda, and we must build

linkages from it to all other goals. Our new framework

must achieve a balance between the three pillars of

sustainable development, and it should particularly

keep in mind the importance of access and the unique

circumstances and diverse needs of countries such

as Bangladesh. I am pleased that the Open Working

Group on Sustainable Development Goals has used a

rigorous, broadly inclusive process to come up with

recommendations for a set of interlinked goals and

targets.

In Bangladesh, we have held national consultations

and remained intensely engaged in the global process.

We consider the set of goals and targets a carefully

balanced package and a crucial basis for the post-2015

development agenda. The future development agenda

must address low-income developing countries’ long-

standing constraints on resources and capacity in a

meaningful way and respond to emerging risks and

vulnerabilities. The post-2015 development framework

must fulfil our aspirations for building an equitable,

prosperous and sustainable world where no person

or nation is left behind. It must also contribute to a

strengthened multilateralism, go beyond the national

policy space and forge international cooperation.

Greater resources would be key to the success of the

post-2015 agenda. There is a need for a robust and

broad-based global partnership based on the principles

of mutual trust, respect and common but differentiated

responsibilities.

Bangladesh underscores its clear resolve with

regard to the financing of sustainable development

by next year, in particular from the financing for

development process. While it is encouraging that some

developed countries have fulfilled their commitment to

contributing 0.7 per cent of their gross national income

(GNI) and 0.2 per cent of GNI as official development

assistance (ODA) to the least developed countries

(LDCs), most other countries have yet to fulfil those

goals. At the same time, in a globalized economy, the

least developed and most climate-vulnerable countries,

such as Bangladesh, require greater support in terms of

ODA, science and technology innovation and capacity-

building. All products from all LDCs must be granted

duty- and quota-free access to all markets of developed

countries.

The world today is witnessing unprecedented

human mobility within and beyond borders. Bangladesh

has emerged as a key stakeholder in global migration.

For instance, remittances contribute approximately

14 per cent of our GDP. Millions of our migrant

workers continue to make a significant contribution

to development in a range of countries worldwide. We

need to acknowledge the manifold contributions that

migrants and their families make to our economies and

societies apart from just remittances. It is therefore

logical for migration and development issues to find

a well-deserved space across the emerging post-

2015 framework. It is my pleasure to announce that

Bangladesh will chair the ninth Global Forum on

Migration and Development in 2016.

No challenge is as complex, widespread and

formidable as climate change, in particular for

countries such as ours. A recent Asian Development

Bank report estimated that the mean economic cost of

climate change and adaptation for Bangladesh would

be between 2 and 9 per cent of GDP by 2100. Earlier,

I emphasized before the Assembly that an increase of

1°C in the temperature is estimated to lead to a 1-metre

rise in the sea level, thereby submerging a fifth of the

territory of Bangladesh. That could compel 30 million

of our people to move elsewhere as climate migrants.

For Bangladesh, climate change is a matter of bare

survival.

In addressing climate change, adaptation remains

particularly key for us. We have a crucial need for

adequate, predictable and additional climate financing,

access to locally adaptable technologies and support

for capacity- and institution-building. We reiterate,

under United Nations leadership, in particular through

the role of the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the importance of the

processes for the integration of the UNFCCC, disaster-

risk reduction and the sustainable development goals.

The world also needs to recognize the untapped

potential of an ocean-based blue economy. The coastal

and small island developing States stand to greatly

benefit from the balanced conservation, development

and use of marine ecosystems, resources and services.

We call for global support for coastal countries, such as

Bangladesh, in developing the much-needed capacity,

technology and institutional frameworks that will

enable us to tap into blue opportunities. For that reason,

we continue to support the inclusion of blue-economy

principles and practices in the post-2015 framework.

Bangladesh proposed a flagship resolution at

UNESCO, adopted in 1999, which led to the recognition

of 21 February as the International Mother Language

Day for the peoples of the world. We established the

only International Mother Language Institute in Dhaka

to preserve the more than 6,500 mother tongues of

humankind. Those are two pillars of our commitment

to mother languages. I once again call on the Assembly

to recognize Bangla, which is spoken by more than

300 million people, as an official language of the

United Nations.

This year, Bangladesh celebrates 40 years of its

membership of the United Nations. On this special

occasion, I should like to reaffirm, on behalf of

our people, the appeal by the father of our nation,

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, for our progeny

at this Assembly in 1974: Let us together create a world

that can eradicate poverty, hunger, war and human

suffering and achieve global peace and security for the

well-being of humankind.