Grand Hyatt, New York, 20 September 2013 Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman attended the Executive Session- Global Compact Leaders Summit of United Nations Global Compact as a distinguished speaker in an executive session on “Local Sustainability Movements” held at Grand Hyatt New York on the 20 September 2013. This session is designed to help companies, governments and other stakeholders to identify ways in which local sustainability movements can mobilize and coordinate all actors in society with an interest and influence on sustainability to deliver a scaled impact on development. BB Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman along with Mr. Jorge Soto, Sustainable Development Director, Braskem SA, Dr. Anthony Mothae Maruping, Commissioner for Economic Affairs, African Union and Mr. Matthew Tukaki, Chair, Global Compact Networks Advisory Committee were the selected distinguished speakers at the session which was facilitated by Ms. Jo Mackness, Executive Director, Centre for Responsible Business, University of California Berkeley-Haas School of Business. The summary of BB Governor’s speech is attached below: I am grateful to UNGC for the invitation to brief you, this global group of sustainability movement leaders, about how we in Bangladesh have adopted the global development goals in our strategies and action programs at the national level. Concerted efforts, aided by sustained stable spell of real GDP growth at above six percent annual average for more than a decade, have already enabled Bangladesh to attain a number of key MDG targets like halving headcount poverty and depth of poverty, gender parity in primary and secondary education enrollment, immunization coverage, infant mortality reduction etc. well ahead of the 2015 timeline. While the challenges of the unfinished agenda on the remaining MDGs are also not trivial, Bangladesh economy is now well poised on an inclusive growth path with sound macroeconomic fundamentals like single digit inflation, moderate fiscal deficit, and domestic currency stability underpinned by positive bop current account balance. Our socioeconomic advancements have on many counts outpaced those of our higher income neighbors hosting much higher levels of FDI inflows; arousing interest of development practitioners about the factors behind the better development performance. In my view the single most important factor behind our superior socioeconomic growth performance is our inclusive, participative process of setting and implementing growth objectives and strategies, based on a social consensus for equitable advancement opportunities for all societal segments. This social consensus driven process has internalized the MDGs and other global development goals in our national goals and strategies. The social consensus for equitable growth and development has emerged from nationwide civil society activism, particularly over the post liberation decades; interalia pioneering the microfinance movement by now embraced globally. More than 2200 non government Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) active countrywide at local and national levels advocating and promoting every dimension and facet of the diverse social, economic and environmental concerns of all occupational, generational, ethnic and gender groups; shaping public opinion and public policies into an inclusive growth orientation. Accordingly the global MDGs for 2015 found ready acceptance and internalization in our government’s Vision 2021 and sixth five year plan (2011-2015) drawn up after rounds of consultations at local, regional and national level with the broad spectrum of all occupational and stakeholder groups including farmers, laborers, ethnic minorities, think tanks, business chambers, CSOs, external development partners, and so forth. Also for the new post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda, our Government’s proposals are drawn up from fresh rounds of in-depth multi stakeholder consultations. The rights-based, inclusive, equitable and people-centered proposals seek the ‘unleashing of human potentials for sustainable development’ embracing all tiers of stakeholders as the principal objective. The social consensus for equitable growth has kept public expenditure of our successive governments consistently on a pronounced pro-poor bias, with large (around a third of total) allocations for health, education, and social safety nets targeting the less well off. Further, this social consensus has also fostered private sector provision of self financed healthcare and education for the better off, leaving more of the limited public resources for the less well off. While multi level stakeholder engagement in designing of development plans and projects is by now fairly well established in Bangladesh, local level stakeholder engagement in the implementation phase is not as yetwidespread. Ongoing digitization of administrative processes and services (like land holding and transfer records registry, disbursements of farming subsidies, social safety net payments etc.) are enhancing resource use efficiency by preventing leakages. Similar efficiency gains in development project implementation can be expected from some oversight role for local level stakeholders, with clearly defined accountabilities. Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, is proactively supporting the government’s inclusive, sustainable growth pursuits, spearheading financial inclusion and green banking towards ingraining socially responsible financing practices. This approach has already proven its worth by helping uphold stability and growth of the economy during and following the global financial crisis; SMEs and other small borrowers suffered no credit crunch in Bangladesh unlike in developed Western financial markets. We have no room here for details of our initiatives, let me just mention that with BB guidance, socially responsible corporate ethos and objectives have by now been embraced by the entire financial sector in Bangladesh. The sector is steadily expanding engagements in financing of on and off-farm SMEs and environmentally beneficial ‘green’ initiatives; environmental impact assessment is a routine part of appraisal for financing decisions. The new initiatives are spawning innovations like new cost effective off branch financial service delivery through microfinance institutions and other local agents, using mobile phone/smart card based platforms. Modest refinance support lines from BB, mostly development partner funded, are kept within monetary growth envelop of a cautious monetary policy stance. SMEs supported by inclusive financing generate incremental output, matching incremental demand for the output come from the incremental new employment and income, maintaining real sector balance and stability. The new inclusive financing diversifies the asset base of the financial sector; while small savings of the new client base add up to substantial bases of stable deposits, enhancing financial sector stability. Commitment and activism for sustainable inclusive socioeconomic development has not been lacking in non-financial businesses either. Almost all of them are in direct or indirect engagements in various dimensions of community development initiatives, and they are transforming their internal practices and processes into more energy efficient, environment friendlier ones. Their new investment initiatives are taking due advantage of new opportunity spaces opened up by the environmental and inclusivity concerns. Civil society elite in Bangladesh has recently teamed up in launching an advocacy campaign for mainstreaming sustainable, socially responsible business; not unlike what we at BB launched some years ago in the financial sector. The UNGC Local Network in Bangladesh may now usefully unite under one umbrella all our businesses, financial and non financial, for carrying further forward the sustainable socially responsible business agenda. I don’t suppose have time now for going into specifics of ongoing corporate sustainability initiatives in Bangladesh; I would just like to mention that these are diverse, touching all dimensions and facets of socioeconomic empowerment, welfare and environmental issues. Some of our business leaders driving these initiatives are present here in this UNGC Leader’s Summit, we shall hear from them about the specific initiatives in the discussion round coming next. It is time now for the next Table Discussion Round III over the third discussion question: “How can they (sustainability movement leaders like you in this audience) meaningfully interact with the key national actors? How shall they be involved in the design of national development plans to ensure that their potential for tangible impact is harnessed?”). I hope you find my intervention outlining Bangladesh’s participative, inclusive approach helpful for kicking off this discussion round. Thank you all for your patient attention.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 11:40:28 +0000
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