Strengthen governance, ensure rule of law to draw more investments

Development partners have urged Bangladesh to strengthen governance and ensure the rule of law, accountability and transparency especially in the public financial management, and regulatory and institutional reforms to tap more investments and develop the nation.
The government has, however, called on the foreign development partners to extend their cooperation even after Bangladesh graduates from the Least Developed Country (LDC) status.
"We have already achieved the middle-income country status. Shortly, we will graduate to a developing nation. But please don't take away your focus from Bangladesh," Finance Minister AMA Muhith told the development partners while speaking at the closing ceremony of the two-day Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) 2018 at a city hotel on Thursday.
External development partners (DPs), government agencies and local private sector representatives took part in the two-day meeting organised by the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance.
According to the BDF communiqué, emphasis was put on strengthening governance and ensuring the rule of law, accountability and transparency, sound public financial management systems, pursuing all relevant international declarations and principles of aid effectiveness; judiciary sector reform; implementation of the National Integrity Strategy and Right to Information Act; and building public sector capacity in terms of administration and financial management for higher economic growth and achieving the SDGs.
They also stressed the need for improving domestic resource mobilisation by raising tax collection and widening the tax net of the country for tackling emerging challenges during the transition period of graduating from the LDCs.
The DPs also laid emphasis on creating 'decent jobs' and removing the barriers to the economic growth & investment, strengthening high quality infrastructure (with consideration of lifecycle cost, safety and resilience to disasters, taking into account adequate environmental and social safeguards); improving the business climate for the private sector; developing the skills manpower-base; and strengthening regional connectivity.
When asked, Local Consultative Group (LCG) co-chair and USAID mission director in Bangladesh Ms Janina Jaruzelski said Bangladesh needs to improve its business climate to tap more investments, which is a key instrument for employment and development.
She said, "There is huge room for development in Bangladesh which should be explored by the government through extended cooperation with the private sector, bringing the women-a vast population-into formal employment and a regional smooth supply chain management."
Mr Muhith said the capability of project implementation in different countries including Bangladesh across the world had already widened, resulting in higher investment requirements every year.
"I hope Bangladesh is very much on track to achieve the SDGs which it has already proved in improving several indicators in the MDGs. So, developed nations should be more liberal on extending their hand to the countries like Bangladesh to cut poverty with higher economic growth," he said.
Mr Muhith claimed that developed nations have extended role than the poor countries to make the SDGs viable.
"Implementation of SDGs without finance available (from developed nations) will be difficult," he added.
About the Bangladesh's preparation after graduating from LDC, the finance minister said: "Bangladesh is pretty prepared to become the upper middle-income country. But the DPs should not cut their focus on the country rather to strengthen their cooperation for sustaining the progress."
ERD Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam said they have formed a team to assess the challenges during the country's transition from the LDC status.
In March this year, the United Nations is likely to announce Bangladesh's graduation process from the LDC status as the country is maintaining better economic and social indicators for three required trajectories.
The BDF communique said strengthening social protection provision for the extreme poor, building human capital as a pre-requisite for growth and poverty reduction improving equity, quality and efficiency of health and education services and improvements in nutrition outcomes are very essential for Bangladesh.
It also emphasized on enhancing women's empowerment by implementing existing laws and policies; increasing women's participation in the labor force; improving their access to productive resources; working together to address child marriage; and eliminating violence against women.
The government-DP gathering also came up with some recommendations for a number of priority areas including scaling up of investment, agricultural development, mitigating climate change, higher foreign direct investment (FDI), extended private sector engagement in development, health, quality education, women empowerment, improving urban service delivery, SDG financing and Bangladesh's LDC transition.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the two-day BDF 2018 on Wednesday.
Director-General and CEO of OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Suleiman Jasir Al-Herbish, World Bank Vice President for South Asia Region Annette Dixon, Vice President of Asian Development Bank Wencai Zhang, Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Minoru Masujima and many other national and international high level delegates attended the event.
Nine discussion sessions took place in the two-day forum where government, DPs, civil society members and private sector representatives were present.

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