Outgoing United Nations (UN) resident coordinator in Dhaka Neal Walker has said the expected elevation of Bangladesh's status as a Middle Income Country in next few years would result in a changed pattern of its ties with the UN.
"We hope to see an evolution of the UN partnership in Bangladesh . . . whenever Bangladesh will be a middle income country, the UN resources will be less and less," he said signaling the country to get prepared to reduce dependence on external resources for its development endeavors in the coming years.
"The relation will have to change as it has changed in other countries which were elevated to the status of the middle income countries. But the UN will be a very strong partner in achieving the status", he added.
Mr Walker was talking to BSS at the fag end of his more than three and a half years of tenure in Bangladesh last week while he was set to join as UN resident coordinator in Ukraine.
The senior UN official was highly appreciative of Bangladesh's rapid development in the past years, earning for its position on the top of the list of least developed countries (LDCs) in achieving the UN-set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
"It is clear that Bangladesh's performance in regard to MDGs is spectacular," he said referring to a study that found out Bangladesh's performance to be the best among the 49 LDcs.
Mr Walker said the UN system acknowledges it to be the achievement of the country and the series of governments which governed Bangladesh but added that the role of the UN as a partner was "very clear in achieving all those MDGs.
"Bangladesh is a country which overcame really, really difficult circumstances -- you fought a Liberation War, you had your intellectual class massacred, you had a famine, cyclones and many people in the world thought Bangladesh will be doomed . . . on the contrary Bangladesh has made remarkable achievements," he said.
He attributed to the "remarkable achievements" of successive governments particularly since 1990s which "were committed to social developments, strong NGO community that operate in a conducive environment to fill up the resource gaps as the government does not have the resource to fill the gaps".
"I will argue that achieving gender quality is one of the fastest ways for Bangladesh to achieve real equity in development," he said.
Mr Walker said the UN now strongly supports Bangladesh in upholding its position in the SDG strategy debate as "Bangladesh is taking part in the global debate with strong credentials" by being one of the most populace LDCs by doing better in achieving the MDGs.
In that process, he said, the current government took a "very positive and ambitious position in areas of real importance to the country like nutrition".
"The food security is a challenge which the country already achieved. So now the issue of nutrition has appeared to be a challenge. Forty per cent under five children are malnourished," he said.
Mr Walker identified Bangladesh role in the debate on human rights to be another area where "Bangladesh is calling for inclusion of the issue of respecting the environmental human rights in the post MDG standards. This also is a very progressive stand."
"You can say Bangladesh is very strong voice in defining the global framework to replace MDG," he said.
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