Bangladesh seeks ‘Bay of Bengal partnership’ for blue economy

Bangladesh has sought ‘Bay of Bengal partnership’ for sustainable economic growth leveraging the blue ocean to its south.

“Blue economy must be inclusive and people-centric,” the foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali said on Tuesday at the end of the two-day international workshop on blue economy in Dhaka.

Bangladesh hosted this workshop for the first time bringing together more than 30 experts and representatives of 20 countries.

The foreign minister gave an idea of the collaboration that could take place and said it must be based on certain universal principles of engagement -- mutual trust, respect, mutual benefits, and equitable sharing of benefits.

“And collaboration will have to be in research, observation, surveillance and in respect of sharing of analyses, outcomes, observations,” he said while concluding the two-day discussions.

The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world that forms the north-eastern part of the Indian Ocean.

It is bordered mostly by India and Sri Lanka to the west, Bangladesh to the north, and Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east.

Bangladesh took interest in hosting the workshop after it has settled its maritime boundary disputes with neighbouring India and Myanmar “peacefully”.

Sovereign rights have been established on more than 118,000 sq km of maritime territory, 200 nautical miles (NM) of exclusive economic zone, and 354 NM of continental shelf after positive verdicts in international courts.

It has raised hopes of extracting “plenty of resources” from the Bay of Bengal, considered by Bangladesh as its “third neighbour”.

But Dhaka lacks expertise and technology to exploit the resources, which is believed to have prompted the minister to seek global partnership.

The foreign ministry earlier said they were planning to draw up a maritime policy.

“Bangladesh is at a nascent stage of development and assessment of blue economy,” the foreign minister said.

He said the blue economy was “much more robust and key to sustainable development”.

Ali said it was “essential” to create robust ‘maritime domain awareness’ among people-at-large, communities, policy-makers across legislature, and executive.

It was also “crucial” to assess, observe and analyse the profound yet unmeasured and uncertain impacts of climate change on oceans and seas, including the Bay of Bengal, he said.

“This is besides the analyses done by IPCC,” Ali said.

He also pitched for generating knowledge and data that he said has to be particularly relevant to the needs of coastal and island states, whose economy are still developing.

“And, data will have to be relevant to the greater benefit of lives and livelihoods of larger population,” he said.

It was “equally important for developing countries to gain access to available, contemporary and critical data from across-the-world”.

Based on two-day discussions, the foreign minister said development of adaptive technology, transfer of critical technology to developing littoral states was a “common space” one needs to learn to share.

The role of private sector is vital and for this the minister suggested creating policy frameworks to attract critical private investment for blue economy.

He said the need of “effective governance” in policy came out clearly during the workshop as far as strategies for overall maritime and related sectors are concerned.

“The need for cooperation has come out robustly,” he said.

Based on the discussions, the minister said, “let us move together and ahead with a ‘Bay of Bengal partnership for Blue Economy’ to secure sustainable development among the coastal or littoral States”.

“…..let us go back from Dhaka with these messages,” he said.

Blue economy became a buzzword for sustainable development particularly in drafting the post-2015 development goals.

The foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque said about 1.4 billion people were living along the Bay of Bengal coast line.

“It’s a people’s highway,” he said.

But there is a strategic and geo-political interest to countries around the Bay.

“Next time we’ll discuss more on political aspects,” he said as the workshop focused solely on development issues.

Secretary of the maritime affairs department of the foreign ministry Khurshid Alam said all have to cooperate and combat the menace that damages sea, referring to the potential impacts of climate change.

“Sea unites, land divides,” he said as there is no boundary in the sea.

Reaz Hamidullah, director general of the foreign ministry’s economic wing, read out a summary of the two-day workshop and said all participants proposed for engagement based on “mutual trust, respect, equitable benefits and equitable benefit sharing”.

He said in partnership and collaboration, the state would be responsible primarily, but private sector must play crucial role.