Govt, donors meet today over support to 7th Plan execution

The government would sit with the country's development partners in Dhaka today (Wednesday) to seek cooperation for implementation of the next five-year development plan, now under preparation, officials said Tuesday.
Economic Relations Division (ERD) officials said both the sides would also discuss the government's initiative to speed up project approval process and formation of the next Joint Cooperation Strategy (JCS) of the donors for the country.
The Local Consultative Group (LCG), a platform of the government and the development partners, would sit for the discussion today after 10 months from its last meeting held in November 2013, said an ERD official.
Cabinet Secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, LCG co-chairs-ERD secretary Mohammad Mejbahuddin and UN Resident Representative in Dhaka Neal Walker will be present at the meeting.
"Since the government has started work to frame the Seventh Five-Year Plan (FYP) for the financial year 2015-16 to FY2019-20, it will need cooperation of the donors. The government will seek necessary support to implement the development plan," said a senior ERD official.
The General Economics Division of the Planning Commission has started preparing the 7th FYP to be finalised by May next year.
Bangladesh's development partners including the United Nations, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Islamic Development Bank, the Department for International Development, China, Germany and other donors will attend the meeting.
The ERD official said the Planning Division would give a presentation of its action plan and activities to reduce  delay in the approval process of technical project proposals (TPPs) and development project proposals (DPPs) at the LCG meeting.
The Planning Division has taken some steps to cut  approval process time to streamline project implementation, said the official.
Earlier, the development partners requested the government to reduce the start-up delays of the development projects, which mainly occurred due to long approval process of the DPP and the TPP.
In the last LCG meeting, the government made commitment to reduce the start-up delays, cutting time in project preparation, approval and tendering process for procurement.
Another ERD official said the government at the LCG meeting today would also discuss about the preparation of the joint country strategy for the year 2016-2020, a guideline for the donors to provide support to Bangladesh's development activities, as the last JCS will expire in 2015.
He said a new LCG co-chair from the donor side could also be selected at the meeting. USAID mission director Ms Janina Jaruzelski in Bangladesh is being tipped for the job for the next two years.
From the government side, the ERD secretary always performs duty as another co-chair of the LCG.

jahangir_fe@yahoo.com