Hasina calls for collective responsibility at WEF group meet to minimise pandemic effects

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called for collective responsibility and partnership to minimise the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

She floated five points, saying the world needs new thinking on tackling inequality and other issues in a virtual meeting of the South Asia Regional Strategy Group on COVID-19 global action on Thursday.

She described how much Bangladesh was affected by the outbreak and what her government was doing to tackle it and its economic impacts.

“The world is perhaps facing the biggest crisis in the last 100 years,” she said “So, we need to face the crisis together. We need an approach of collective responsibility and partnership from every society.”

“As the world goes through such a complex scenario, we will need different kind of approaches,” Hasina said and made the five points.

First, poverty and inequality within and among societies will increase rapidly, Hasina said.

Bangladesh had lifted half of its poor out of poverty but “many of them may now slide back”, she warned.

“So, the world will need new thinking on human well-being, tackling inequality, supporting poor and getting back our economies to pre-COVID levels,” the prime minister said.

She emphasised “robust” global leadership from G7, G20 and OECD and UN-led multilateral system in the second point.

Hasina urged WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab to identify “infectious diseases” as a key risk in the 2020 Global Risks Report.

“So, the Forum and UN should mobilise and lead governments and global businesses on focused policy discourse,” she said and offered assistance in any such initiatives.

Hasina also stressed support for the migrant workers, who are facing a very difficult situation and joblessness, and the need for fast development of digital tools and technologies to better prepare for the future.

The prime minister said the world still does not know how long the pandemic will persist while it is already battling climate change.

“Now, coronavirus is challenging our existence. At the current level of globalisation, insulating one country from rest of the world is not possible and isolation policy will not work anymore,” she pointed out.

“We need to bring economy, business and society on track; support people to get over trauma and fear, and revive vital sectors,” she said.

‘DIRECT CASH TRANSFER’

As a developing country, Bangladesh is facing “twin shocks” as both supply and demand are affected by the pandemic, Hasina said.

A 41-day-long lockdown in the form of holiday is in force, bringing almost three-fourths of the country under lockdown, she said.

Government measures could keep the fatalities “still at low” with 127 deaths and 4,186 infecting in the last 47 days, Hasina said.

She said the government had already announced an $11.6 billion stimulus package for various sectors of the economy to help them cope up with the effects of the pandemic. 

The primary focus of this package is manufacturing and service sectors, agriculture and social safety net facilities. This support package is equivalent to 3.5 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP.

“We are going for direct cash transfer to almost 50 million people,” the prime minister said.

Bangladesh also has “sufficient food stock” as of now but ensuring food security in case of a prolonged crisis will be a “big challenge for all, especially for the South Asian countries”, Hasina said.

“Our agriculture is being adversely affected due to disruption of supply chains,” she said. 

As we host 1.1 million Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh has also included them in its overall strategy, Hasina said.

She also mentioned the four-tier plan to cushion the economy. The parts of the plan are  - increased public expenditure, fiscal packages, expanded social safety net programmes and increased money supply.