Bangladesh shall promote "peaceful and inclusive" society, provide "access to justice for all" and build "effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels", if Dhaka pledges so and, more importantly, if the United Nations sets this as development agenda for a 15-year period beyond 2015.
Then, who will do what, to accomplish the tasks? The UN has no enforcement authority to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are set to be finalised to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And the government doesn't seem to be focussed on inclusive society, justice and functional institutions, in view of the current state of governance in relation to rule of law and checks and balances on the political front.
The Planning Commission's General Economics Division, as the focal point for the pursuit of economic development, recently stated that it would not be possible to attain the goals such as hundred per cent literacy and full employment for the workforce within the remaining 500 days' timeline for the MDGs. However, the government is expected to endorse a new set of goals - 17 SDGs, in place of eight MDGs - as the Open Working Group on behalf of the comity of nations has formulated the draft of the future goals.
The national governments have, of course, advantages in allocating resources and using legal instruments to improve people's economic status that the UN doesn't have at its disposal, other than giving moral preaching to its member-countries. Apparently resigned to the situation characterised by more failure than success in attainment of MDGs, the UN is smartly shifting focus to the next goals. For the Planning Commission, fixing new targets is not a challenge at all for it has the habit of piling up hundreds of projects, failing to implement them over the years.
Development activists around the world have lamented the absence of resource endowment, especially delivery of aid pledged by developed countries, for the purpose of MDGs. Some even questioned the UN's targeting like halving poverty, saying: "Who has given you the right to allow continued public suffering?" Also, the dominant method of measuring human development, in dollar terms for example, has in the meantime been challenged. Against this backdrop, the global partners of the new development agenda, known as SDGs, may look for ways and means to make better arrangement, especially that of financing, for their better implementation.
Dhaka, nevertheless, maintains sanctity of contracts with external actors and its track-records in meeting international obligations, be it in payment or otherwise, are quite clean. Bangladesh also shows too much promptness about entering any multilateral forum or into any treaty as it happened in the case of joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the 1990s.While the decision to join the global body that promotes trade liberalisation was a justified one, the hurried move cost the country thousands of small domestic industries that lacked preparations to face competition. In the 1970s, Bangladesh, as many analysts observed, paid a huge price for taking an injudicious foreign policy decision to export jute to Cuba risking US food aid under PL-480.
Hardly any homework is seen in terms of political understanding and ownership sans bureaucratic exercise, while giving national consent to the complex initiatives at a global or regional level. The targets contained in the proposed SDGs appear to be more complicated and politically sensitive than the generally vegetarian MDG targets and will thus require strong political commitment and will to carry them forward in line with the national priorities.
Seven years after the Kofi Annan-led UN adopted the global development goals in 2000, a deputy-secretary-level official at a key ministry asked if the MDGs 'is a new kind of disease', when his boss - a joint secretary -- wanted to send him to a relevant workshop in Dhaka. Already, the word reverberated in various development documents of the government, which recognised development as the right of the people, upholding the spirit of the UN's unique Millennium Declaration. Unfortunately, nothing was said about failure to implement or non-compliance with the MDGs.
Is the country better prepared this time around to attain even tougher goals? One of the proposed targets reads: "By 2020 achieve environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle in accordance with agreed international frameworks and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment."If achieved, it would be one of the most desired accomplishments but it's hard to believe that to happen, without taking the overall national development to the next stage that is comparable to that of the advanced nations.
There is no strong ground to believe that the government, which is yet to work on the basis of political cohesiveness, would strongly pursue actions to ensure "equal opportunity" and eliminate "discriminatory laws, policies and practices". On the flipside, it may receive some relief as some goals have no quantitative targets as such. The one to "substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all its forms" does not make much sense as it would leave scope for impunity to the alleged corrupt people, given the Anti-Corruption Commission's handling of the Padma Bridge corruption scandal.
The target of reaching the targeted growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP), set at 7.0 per cent in the SDGs, is another example of having a goal with no binding obligation. Finance Minister AMA Muhith, in the budget for 2014-15, fixed a similar target (7.3 per cent), much higher than the actual lower one or, at best, 6.0 per cent recorded the year before, only to match the estimate with the target mentioned in the perspective plan.
In such a scenario, it's not unlikely that the SDGs, like many other euphemistic development semantics, may remain a mere lip service to the people at large unless there is a massive change. The over-enthusiasm of the country's policymakers with imported development goals of generic nature and yet thoughtless insertion of those into national documents indicate a poor domestic exercise and a lack of seriousness about commitment to a homegrown approach to national development.
The writer is Executive Editor at ICE Business Times.
khawaza@gmail..com
Commitment to development versus performance
Khawaza Main Uddin | Published: September 16, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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