Sustainability has now become the primary agenda in almost all high-profile dialogues following the adoption of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. Bangladesh was one of the forerunners in achieving MDGs (millennium development goals) and is committed to perform the same way in the case of SDGs. The task is not only difficult but also arduous.
The 7th Five Year Plan of Bangladesh has been aligned with the SDGs of 2030. A separate SDG monitoring and implementation committee has been constituted with representatives of 20 relevant ministries of the government. As per the GED (general economic division) of the Planning Commission, during 2017-20 additional income requirement from internal sources would be $107.72 billion which will increase to $257.49 billion during 2021-25. The amount will further soar to $430-87 billion during 2026-30, and total requirement from 2017 to 2030 would be $796.09 billion. It is estimated that financial requirement to be met from local sources would be around 57 per cent and the remaining amount may come from external sources, like FDI and foreign grant and support, and including all these the total requirement would be $928.48 billion or about US$1.0 trillion, i.e., annual requirement would be US$66.36 billion. The information furnished above tells about the huge amount of additional money required for implementing the SDGs in next 13 years. Managing this huge amount of finance is another gigantic task.
Statistics shows, on an average 34 per cent of the money will come from government sources and 42 per cent from the private sector and the remaining 6 per cent from public/private partnership and as ODA is declining, an average of 15 per cent is expected to be received from external sources. The government is also serious in building capacities of the public sector institutions and wants the private sector to explore new sources of investment. Strong public-private collaboration is one of the sectors expected to support SDG implementation.
SDG score of Bangladesh as per the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network 2017 was not promising as Bangladesh scored 120 out of 157. Its overall performance on the index was 56.2, lower than the regional average score of 63.3. Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka scored higher than Bangladesh on the index. Bangladesh has a 'red' threshold for 10 of the 17 SDGs. Its lowest scores were on SDG9 and SDG11; SDG9- industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG11- sustainable cities and communities. In view of the score, Bangladesh would need to give more emphasis on the issues of industry, innovation and infrastructure meaning that a new era of industrialisation has to be pursued. Sustainable cities and communities are other red areas to be addressed.
It need not be emphasised that strong ties between public and private sectors are most important. Government usually takes inputs from the private sector to reduce regulatory compliance costs, ensure good regulatory design and effective enforcement, improve business regulations and reduce regulatory unpredictability. But rules and regulations of the government are sometimes prepared without prior knowledge of the private sector and sometimes businesses are overburdened by enforcement of such rules and regulations.
Considering sustainability issues, enterprises are a bit concerned to integrate social, environmental and ethical aspects with their production process. International brands are now targeting 100 per cent compliance, and a Climate Neutral Supply Chain by 2030. In order to promote its businesses with the brands, private sector needs to educate itself, establish and maintain partnership, adapt cleaner production strategies, ensure efficient use of resources, etc.
CSR policies aligning with the need of sustainability and CSR reporting with transparency can improve a company's image. CSR is a practice to make the entrepreneurs responsible in three different areas. They are: economic aspects (poverty alleviation, financial and economic inclusion, workers rights and wages), social aspects (social inclusion, human rights, gender equality etc) and environmental aspects (climate change mitigation and adaptation, efficient use of resources etc.). The main tipping point is that private sector can play a big role for transformation including market transformation. At this stage, the private and public sectors would need to know each other to derive the benefits of the system, and inter-sector partnership has to be spelt out judiciously.
Private sector has gradually been encouraged to develop sustainable business entrepreneurs. Statistics from some global reports show that assets worth about $23 trillion have been achieved through sustainable business and the figure is increasing. Environment Sustainability and Governance (ESG) are interrelated issues. Private sector can not disregard consumer demand as consumers are ready to pay more for green products. Sustainability issues have to be maintained throughout the entire value chain of the production line. But there is no 'one size fits all' formula. It differs from country to country and its nature varies based on different cultures and so countries are responsible to design their own strategies. Learning from shared experiences can give some positive results.
Business integrity and long-term sustainability are two other critically discussed issues now. Abuse of power for private gain and how it creates obstacles for economic and social development and distorts markets, are being presented as examples. Responsibilities are now on the private sector to maintain business integrity.
Integrating human rights in sustainability plans and its critical elements are the core issues discussed elaborately in the SDGs, most of the companies now treat it as a corporate value system. Around 500 companies have formed a global alliance to suggest corporate human rights strategy in collaboration with UN organisations. UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) are important in this respect. Awareness about economic and social rights is important and for this close partnership between public and private sectors is the core issue.
Business and Human Rights are new areas. Some countries have established their Human Rights Agencies much before the UNGP has been published in 2011. Safety at workplaces and complaints on industry-workers relations are received carefully by some countries and for this some reputed organisations in some countries are playing a vital role. Malaysia is an example of this. Policy commitment is important as remediation and compensation are hardly followed in some Asian countries.
Migrant workers, forced labour and human trafficking in Asian supply chains are now coming up for scrutiny. Private sector creates about 90 per cent of the jobs globally. In an ILO data of 2012 it is seen that about 21 million people were victims of forced labour globally which increased to 25 million in 2016. This is really alarming. IOM and ILO are working for combating unacceptable forms of labour practices.
Private sector is the main source of innovations. It has to do business taking care of the environment and human rights and also making efficient use of resources.
The writer is CEO, Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD), a partnership organization of DCCI, MCCI and CCI.
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