Muhith lists four obstacles to achieving MDGs in time
Friday, 22 October 2010
FE Report
Finance Minister AMA Muhith said in Dhaka Thursday that inequality in terms of income, malnutrition, student's dropout and absence of trained nurses during child birth are major challenges for achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) in Bangladesh.
"Though Bangladesh has been performing well in different sectors, those obstacles stand in the way of overall achievements," Muhith said.
He was speaking at a seminar on "Mitigating socio-economic inequalities to accelerate poverty reduction: Investing on vulnerable children focusing on strategy to reduce child poverty", organised jointly by the UNICEF and Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA).
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) also launched a global report on "Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity", at the function.
The finance minister said: "We have serious problem of child malnutrition. It is very hard to achieve the MDGs for this reason."
"Bangladesh is one of the top performers in women empowerment in the world. But the four problems are obstacles to achieving the MDGs in time," he added.
He urged the developed countries and foreign donors to enhance their financing to the poor and least developed countries (LDCs) to cut the poverty and inequality.
Mr. Muhith also requested the researchers to find out the social inequality pockets in the country saying it would be very helpful for the government to trace the hunger.
With regard to demand by the researchers, the finance minister said that it is impossible to allocate eight per cent fund of the GDP for the education sector.
"Bangladesh's total public investment is nearly 16 per cent of the GDP. If we allocate eight per cent for the education sector how the rest of the sectors will be managed," he questioned.
UNICEF's representative Carel de Rooy in a presentation said that Bangladesh's 40 per cent of the population are children (0-17 years old). Out of them, 46 per cent live below poverty line who are deprived of basic social services.
The UNICEF report said Bangladesh is quite a uniform country at the divisional level and even at district level, as is demonstrated by the results obtained through several indicators and the deprivation index.
The real disparities appear at upazila level, particularly between upazilas within the same district, the report said.
State minister for child and women affairs Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chawdhury urged the developed world for extending their financial support to the developing and poor countries as per their commitment.
The developed countries are committed to spend 0.7 per cent of their total GDP for the poor nations.
President of the BEA Prof Abul Barkat said the developed countries should strictly follow their commitment to the developing and LDCs to alleviate poverty and hunger.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith said in Dhaka Thursday that inequality in terms of income, malnutrition, student's dropout and absence of trained nurses during child birth are major challenges for achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) in Bangladesh.
"Though Bangladesh has been performing well in different sectors, those obstacles stand in the way of overall achievements," Muhith said.
He was speaking at a seminar on "Mitigating socio-economic inequalities to accelerate poverty reduction: Investing on vulnerable children focusing on strategy to reduce child poverty", organised jointly by the UNICEF and Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA).
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) also launched a global report on "Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity", at the function.
The finance minister said: "We have serious problem of child malnutrition. It is very hard to achieve the MDGs for this reason."
"Bangladesh is one of the top performers in women empowerment in the world. But the four problems are obstacles to achieving the MDGs in time," he added.
He urged the developed countries and foreign donors to enhance their financing to the poor and least developed countries (LDCs) to cut the poverty and inequality.
Mr. Muhith also requested the researchers to find out the social inequality pockets in the country saying it would be very helpful for the government to trace the hunger.
With regard to demand by the researchers, the finance minister said that it is impossible to allocate eight per cent fund of the GDP for the education sector.
"Bangladesh's total public investment is nearly 16 per cent of the GDP. If we allocate eight per cent for the education sector how the rest of the sectors will be managed," he questioned.
UNICEF's representative Carel de Rooy in a presentation said that Bangladesh's 40 per cent of the population are children (0-17 years old). Out of them, 46 per cent live below poverty line who are deprived of basic social services.
The UNICEF report said Bangladesh is quite a uniform country at the divisional level and even at district level, as is demonstrated by the results obtained through several indicators and the deprivation index.
The real disparities appear at upazila level, particularly between upazilas within the same district, the report said.
State minister for child and women affairs Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chawdhury urged the developed world for extending their financial support to the developing and poor countries as per their commitment.
The developed countries are committed to spend 0.7 per cent of their total GDP for the poor nations.
President of the BEA Prof Abul Barkat said the developed countries should strictly follow their commitment to the developing and LDCs to alleviate poverty and hunger.