Hasina identifies 3 key post-MDG goals

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has identified three key post-Millenium Development Goals (MDG) priorities – fighting hunger and inequality, tackling terrorism and extremism and developing sustained cooperation.

Speaking at the plenary session of the Asian-African Conference Commemoration, Hasina said : “Despite remarkable development gains, 2.2 billion people of the world still live below the poverty level; more than 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger, and over 200 million people hard-hit by climate change.”

She stressed on “South-South cooperation” to save the poor and the planet and highlighted the ‘zero-tolerance to terror’ of her government as a model to fight radicalism.

Bangladesh is organizing a “High-level South-South and Triangular Cooperation in the context of the Post-2015 Development Agenda” next month in Dhaka.

Hasina said all the critical issues will be discussed there. She stressed that climate change issues cannot be addressed by any country alone but called for close cooperation, especially between Southern economies.

“The South accounts for half of the world’s GDP, produces half of its economic output and conducts more than half of global trade. Therefore, the South-South cooperation is critical for attaining sustainable development and building resilience of Southern countries.

The South-South and triangular cooperation has immense potential to foster development, achieve peace and security, fight terrorism and violent extremism, as well as combat human trafficking and climate change consequences.”

Hasina highlighted Bangladesh’s success in achieving MDG targets before time and that despite global recession, her country has managed a 6 percent annual GDP growth and brought down poverty levels from 40 to 24 percent between 2010 and 2015.

Emphasising that human mobility and migration were great drivers of change, Hasina South-South cooperation on migration can bring significant development dividends.

She said her domestic priorities were strengthening democracy, secularism and women empowerment and also to end the ‘culture of impunity’, for which, she said, the war crimes trials were very important.