The government is going host the next Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) meeting with donors on April 26-27 to mobilise necessary foreign aid for funding country's development programmes.
Officials said the Economic Relations Division (ERD) has taken the decision on meeting with the development partners on instructions by Finance Minister AMA Muhith.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has verbally given her consent to be present at the meeting, they added.
The important meeting, whose main goal is fundraising for much-needed infrastructural development, is going to take place after the lapse of five years. The last BDF meet was held in Dhaka on February 15-16 in 2010.
Officials said the meeting could not be held during the last few years because of government's 'problem' with some major development partners, especially with the World Bank. "The government has now moved forward to cement the relation with donors through discussion," a senior ERD official told the FE.
"The upcoming BDF would serve to review and discuss the priority sectors of the government with the development partners in a number of working sessions," it was informed in a preparatory meeting, held Thursday, on organising BDF-2015.
Officials said the draft seventh Five Year Plan (2015-2020) would be regarded as the main document for discussion at the BDF meeting where the development partners will be briefed about government's long-term vision.
Another senior ERD official said in the meeting the government will consult the development partners on the country's ongoing development programmes, especially the reform programmes in the socioeconomic sector, their successes, challenges and future plans.
The goals, objectives and strategies identified in the seventh Five Year Plan on the country's economic and social development, climate change and governance, with a view to eradicating poverty will also be discussed in the meeting to work out ways for becoming a middle- income country by 2021.
The forum will also outline strategies for the implementation of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. The strategies for the monitoring of development programmes and results management will also be consulted with the development partners.
The meeting will list strategies for Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM), Public-Private Partnership (PPP), and other forms of Financing for Development (FFD). It will also discuss a strategy to strengthen the overall effectiveness of development cooperation in the country.
Officials said the meeting would provide an opportunity to identify the future development challenges and the ways and means of overcoming those. The government will have the opportunity to discuss the future nature and trends of foreign assistance coming from the development partners and gain commitments in the meeting.
The meeting was last scheduled to be held in Dhaka on November 2-3 in 2011, which was later deferred following a request from World Bank (WB) Country Director and then co-chair of the local consultative group (LCG) Ms Ellen Goldstein.
The ERD later decided to hold the pending BDF in the first quarter of 2012. This meeting also lost way in the Padma Bridge controversy, officials said.
Usually, the Bangladesh government seeks necessary support and cooperation from the donors at BDF -- a gathering of the government and bilateral and multilateral donors who bankroll Bangladesh's development schemes.
Bangladesh needs financial support in increased volume from the development partners in achieving double-digit growth and cutting poverty down to 10 per cent by 2021.
In the last BDF meet issues like development strategies, governance and human development, energy and power, agriculture, food security and water resources, environment and climate change, transport and communications, and digital Bangladesh and ICT development were discussed in different working sessions.
The meet had captured commitments in a 'BDF Agreed Action Plan' outlining 25 concrete actions for government to be supported by the development partners.
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