Attaining the unfulfilled MDGs

Shamsul Alam United Nations Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Mr. Neal Walker, has said, "The world really needs an articulate Bangladeshi voice, a strong but concise statement on what is relevant for the nation and consequently, for the world's least developed countries." Bangladesh has established itself as a role model of MDGs (millennium development goals) for its prominent achievement in Goal-1 (Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger), Goal-3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), Goal-4 (Reduce Child Mortality) and Goal-6 (Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases). The success stories, performance and attainments of Bangladesh in some of these MDGs reveal the strong political commitment and problem-solving attitude from the government accompanied by its pro-poor growth strategies. The present government has placed elimination of poverty and reducing inequity at the forefront of its development strategy. The thrust has now shifted to putting Bangladesh into a trajectory of high performing growth, stabilising commodity prices, minimising income and human poverty, securing health and education for all, enhancing creativity and human capacity, establishing social justice, reducing social disparity, achieving capacity to tackle the adverse effects of climate change, and firmly rooting democracy in the political arena. With a view to reinforcing the effort for achieving unfinished business and unmet goals, the government has integrated MDGs into the premiere document for planning and implementation, the Sixth Five Year Plan (2011-2015). The sixth plan has set targets on the basis of vision 2021 and MDGs in seven broad thematic areas. The national budget has been made as per the Plan in the last four years. Accordingly, the allocation in the sectors related to MDGs, particularly education and health, have been given priority in the national budget. The vast amount of investment in the family planning and health programmes coupled with improved infrastructure and connectivity has enabled the country to change the population structure and consequently yield demographic dividend. Policies on external migration, multitude of innovative and demand-driven social safety net and increase in labour income in the last decade can be principally attributed to reduce the level of poverty in an extensive and rapid manner. The Sixth Plan aims at increasing targeted level of allocation on social protection up to 3.0 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) by the end of the Plan period to effectively serve the purpose of reducing extreme poverty and income inequality. However, around 52 per cent of the national budget is spent on the poverty reduction activities of the government. The government Social Safety Net Programmes have already covered about 30.1 per cent rural and 25.3 per cent of all the families of the country. The country is also in the process of finalising National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) for better streamlining the social protection issues with the development and getting more value from the invested money. To expedite the implementation process, General Economics Division of Planning Commission has been monitoring and preparing report on MDGs status since 2005. Also for the first time in Bangladesh, the implementation of the Sixth Plan has been evaluated and reviewed under the results-based framework. Development projects of Annual Development Programme (ADP) have to be in line with MDGs and Sixth Five Year Plan in order to get approval. The present government has been pursuing the development strategies, policies and institutions that allow Bangladesh to accelerate growth and reduce poverty and inequality. Rapid reduction of poverty has been possible through attaining high economic growth and ensuring productive employment and incomes for large number of people of Bangladesh. The growth-employment-poverty reduction linkage has been ensured by focusing on labour intensive urban and rural manufacturing production. Land productivity has been raised to support income-earning opportunities of workers remaining in agriculture. Over the last four years, rice production has been stabilised in the strong area of 34 million tonnes. Rice surplus is 7.65 million tonnes in FY13. Rice production was 26.5 million tonnes in 2006 which has been augmented to 33.8 million tonnes in 2013. The pro-farmer activities and policies of the present government that ensures timely distribution of agricultural inputs (seed, fertiliser, electricity for irrigation) at subsidised prices to the farmers, increasing factor productivity through farm mechanisation, adoption of new technology are the causes behind the success in food production. Farmers have shifted from growing low-yield, single-crop, deep-water rice to double cropping of short maturity, high-yield rice. There has also been a pronounced shift away from sharecropping into fixed-rent leasehold tenancy. Landless and marginal farmers have been the major beneficiaries of this change. Simultaneously, credit constraints have been relaxed thanks to the country's well-known microfinance institutions. Access to finance has facilitated human capital accumulation, especially in women's education and health, and promoted investments in micro enterprises. Despite the still considerable labour under-employment in rural areas, real wages in agriculture have increased from the monetary equivalent of less than 2.5 kilograms of rice a day in 1983 to more than 6.0 kilograms today. The seasonal hunger associated with the monga period -between transplanting and harvesting paddy -is no more there. Remittances from women working in factories and from men working in construction have also helped reduce rural poverty. Many low-skilled workers go abroad as well, especially to the Gulf countries. Remittances are growing by about 10 per cent every year. Moreover, remittances, from 7.0 million expatriate Bangladeshis contribute directly to improvement in the financial and development status of migrants' families and communities. The linkage of remittance to poverty reduction is established in the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. Productive job creation in manufacturing and services sectors is one of the strategies of the present government to sustained poverty alleviation. It is estimated that in Bangladesh every one per cent GDP growth induces to create 250,000 employment opportunity in a year. Based on this criterion, it is estimated that during the last four years about 6.0 million new employments have been created in the country. Moreover, around 2.0 million people went abroad for work during the same period. Hence, a total of 8.26 million people brought under employment during last four years. The rate of employment creation has been the highest than any time before and total employment will be created as projected in the SFYP at the end of the five years. In Bangladesh, the industrial sector now accounts for nearly 32 per cent of value added, up from 20 per cent in 1990, and the urbanisation rate is approaching 30 per cent, double than what it was in 1980. Exports as percentage of GDP tripled between 1990 and 2010, with much of the increase in a thriving ready-made garment industry that is highly intensive in female labour. This structural transformation, along with improvements in agricultural productivity, has had a major impact on living standards. GDP per capita has doubled in the past two decades and the share of the population living below US$1.25 a day fell from 70 per cent in 1992 to 43 per cent in 2010. The case of urbanising economies such as Bangladesh may support the idea that the three major transformations happen simultaneously. Taking advantage of their abundance of relatively low-skilled labour, such economies can engage in world markets through light manufacturing. Wage employment is created in large numbers, providing opportunities for rural migrants, and cushioning social tensions at a time of rapid social change. In Bangladesh, the expansion of the light manufacturing sector has allowed for the integration of young women into the labour market, at a time of falling fertility rates. Employment opportunities for women have in turn led to growing female schooling, better human development outcomes, and faster poverty reduction. Access to public health service is one of the toughest jobs for the poor let alone the quality of service. The successful programmes for immunisation, control of diarrhoeal diseases and Vitamin-A supplementation are considered to be the most significant contributors to the decline in child and infant deaths along with potential effect of overall economic and social development. The government is also in the process to appoint at least 5000 nurses in public services to boost up the service delivery and working on improving governance in health services. It has framed the National Health Policy, 2011' with a view to revamping the health sector and the 'National Population Policy 2012' has also been finalised. Moreover, in order to strengthen primary healthcare facilities, the government has launched 12,217 community clinics to extend health services to the grassroots level. The innovative idea to use the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for progress of the health of women and children has already been acclaimed by the world. Another is the public awareness programme about health hazard that is given top priority. It also reiterates the need for continuous and elevated support from the development partners to meet the goals. The rates of dropout in the primary school and the quality of education have been a major concern for achieving MDG-2. National Education Policy 2010 which is in the process of implementation is such a comprehensive framework that devises to fight these educational challenges of the country. The free distribution of all books to all the students up to class nine, introduction of Primary School Completion (PSC) and Junior School Completion (JSC) examinations, taking examinations timely and providing results in stipulated times, introducing modern technology for learning are some of the important measures taken by the Government to improve the quality of education in the country. To introduce ICT education at all levels of education, each school is provided with a computer and multimedia. Further to improve the quality of education, new examination technique has been developed and curricula text and pedagogy have been modernized. Teacher-student ratio is being lowered to ensure quality education and is projected to cut down to 1:30 by 2014 from 1:48 in 2009. The public expenditure on education as per cent of GDP is on the increase and targeted to reach 4.0 per cent by 2014 (currently is 2.11 per cent). In January 2013, in a landmark announcement, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh declared the nationalisation of all non-government primary schools of the country. Moreover, the government has initiated nationalisation of jobs of about 104 thousand primary school teachers. On gender parity, National Policy for Women's Advancement (2011) has been adopted to promote women participation in the labour force, particularly in the labour-intensive manufacturing sector and service sector. Initiatives have been undertaken to train female workers and then send to developed Asian countries. This positive development has occurred due to some specific public interventions focusing on girl students, such as stipends and exemption of tuition fees for girls in rural areas, and the stipend scheme for girls at the secondary level. In an effort to overall development through female education and women empowerment, the government has passed the Education Assistance Trust Act 2012 and has newly introduced first ever Education Trust Fund for students of graduate or equivalent level and allocated Tk. 10 billion (1,000 crore) for this year. Benevolent persons and education lovers have been urged to donate money to this fund and their donation would enjoy tax-waving facility. Environmental hazard poses a great challenge to attain MDGs. The Department of Environment is in action as directed in the Environment Conservation Act 1997. Now ETP has been made compulsory for industry to avoid harm to environment. Lessons learnt from the past decade of efforts to achieve the MDGs show that where we have seen rapid progress, we have seen strong ownership by the developing country governments. In other words, the first precondition for the MDG achievement is that the government takes the lead in developing and implementing appropriate policies aligned with the MDGs, and backed with adequate levels of investment. This maybe augmented if supported by the international community with timely and adequate development assistance which may also be needed beyond 2015 for accomplishment of attainment of all the MDGs. International partnership for global development which has mostly remained unfulfilled must put great emphasis with immense role both from the developed and developing countries. OECD countries and developing countries can do an incredible favour to the LDCs, Landlocked Countries and Small Island Developing States by providing opportunities and preferences in the form of trade, technology transfer, and FDI for creating physical and social infrastructure. They also need to implement their pledged commitment of disbursing Overseas Development Assistance to the developing countries. We believe that adequate, stable and predictable financing, as well as efficient use of resources is required to support socio-economic development. This will require honouring international, regional, and national financing commitments, enhancing domestic resource mobilisation, and complementary and innovative sources for finance such as private investment, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation, public-private partnerships etc. Knowledge sharing, innovation efforts, capacity building, technology transfers, data sharing and trade will also be the important growth drivers for attaining all the MDG targets. Professor Dr. Shamsul Alam is Member, General Economics Division, Planning Commission. In the Planning Commission he led the preparation of the Post 2015 Development Agenda on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh and formally sent the proposal to the UN on June 06, 2013 for consideration in the 68th Session of the General Assembly of the UN for consideration amongst other nations' proposals. [email protected]