Co-organized by Republic of Azerbaijan, South Centre and

Islamic Development Bank

 23 rd October 2019, 13.00-14.30 Baku, Azerbaijan

Venue: Nobel Lounge of the Baku Boulevard Hotel

His Excellency Mr. Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev, Hon’ble Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan,

H.E. Dr. Bandar M. H. Hajjar, President of Islamic Development Bank

H.E. Dr. Carlos María Correa, Executive Director  of the South Center

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon.

At the outset, I would like to convey my Government’s sincere appreciation to the Government of Azerbaijan for hosting this summit of NAM and for extending excellent hospitality to all of us.

I have the pleasure of thanking the Government of Azerbaijan, Islamic Development Bank and the South Center for organizing this important side event. The theme of this side event ‘Promoting Peace and Sustainable Development through South-South and Triangular Cooperation’ actually indicates to the current global political scenario and a viable option to deal with it in the form of South-South and Triangular cooperation.

In principle, South-South Cooperation is aimed at complementing North-South Cooperation and may I repeat, not a substitute of it. Actually, in reality, the North-South Cooperation has been declining and failing to live up to its promise while the importance of South-South Cooperation as an effective form of development cooperation has been growing substantially. In fact, the scope of SSC has expanded previously from technical fields to economic, social, cultural, technological, environmental and more and more political domains.

Of late, we see growing substantial contribution from the South in terms of trade, credit, investment, development cooperation and technological innovations. This trend is evidenced by more developing countries providing trade preferences to other Southern countries particularly the LDCs, SIDS and LLDCs trade finance opportunities, infrastructure finance including through creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS Bank, the New Development Bank, increased scholarships offered to developing countries and various technical assistance projects. Often innovations and technology available in the South are more affordable and appropriate to the needs of the other Southern countries.

As the centre of gravity of international economy is gradually tilting towards East, SSTrC would significantly contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the SDGs. 

Dear Friends,

Bangladesh, like many other countries from the South, considers South-South and Triangular Cooperation as an important and effective cooperation mechanism in its development trajectory. Under the leadership of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, we are now implementing our national development Vision 2021 to achieve the status of a middle-income country by 2021 and the Vision 2041 aims at transforming the country into a ‘Sonar Bangla’, a developed country by 2041. We are in the process of graduation from the LDC category and we are conscious that this transition would force us to face new set of challenges as a middle-income country. As we embark on that journey, we wish to harness the potential of SSC to address our huge development needs and challenges. The ‘UN Global Publication on Best Practices’ has incorporated 5 innovative development solutions of Bangladesh which are Union Digital Centre, SDG Tracker, Empathy Training, Service Innovation Fund and Time Cost Visit Model of public service delivery. 

Excellencies,

After UN, NAM is the largest organization with more than 55% of the world’s population. So, there is hardly any better forum than NAM to promote and practice SSTrC. I am happy to see that Islamic Development Bank has join hands with South Center to provide resources and platform for exchange of knowledge, expertise and technology so that countries of the South can devise indigenous solutions to their problems. I acknowledge the great contribution of the South Center in providing substantive assistances to the countries of the South in dealing with global problems and opportunities. Bangladesh would like to officially associate itself with South Center soon in future.

I am happy to learn that an epoch-making study entitled “Developing National Ecosystems for South-South and Triangular Cooperation to Achieve Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” will be introduced today. Unfortunately, Bangladesh does not feature in the study though we have lot of innovative ideas and practices to share with rest of the Countries of the South. In the book published by UNDP and Bangladesh in 2016 titled “South-South Cooperation: Financing for SDGs”, it outlined 49 success cases of Bangladesh and 10 other SSCs either to adopt or replicate the models for the development of other SSCs.  I hope future versions will include cases of successes of Bangladesh which could be emulated in other countries for the benefit of their people.

Before I conclude, I would like to share with you some of our thoughts and plans to advance SSTrC promoting peace and sustainable development as per the theme of today’s event:

First, we want to share our experiences in various social and economic sectors, such as education, agriculture, public health, and governance by setting up a “South-South Knowledge and Innovation Centre” in Bangladesh.  Through the Centre, Bangladesh and other countries would be able to co-create solutions addressing challenges they face in advancing technology transformation, particularly emanating from 4IR, share their innovative practices and identify experiences which could be transferred, replicated and scaled up. I invite Islamic Development Bank and South Center to assist it through different means.

Second, there is lot of potentials in the South-South countries, unfortunately, these have neither been correctly articulated or explored yet nor the critical issues of the Southern countries are fully evaluated. Therefore, Bangladesh proposes to establish a Forum of Development/Finance/Foreign Ministers of the Southern countries to discuss, dialogue, and explore the potentials of the Southern countries, the critical issues of the South to address the common challenges.  I had sent out the proposal to all Foreign Ministers of the South and have received lot of encouraging responses and queries. While we will soon respond to their queries, we must work together in collaboration and cooperation to get it established as soon as possible.

Third, the Diaspora of the South is expanding in different countries. This diaspora possesses wealth of knowledge and experience contributing immensely to the development including the advancement of technology in the host countries. The South-South Cooperation should provide them a platform to work closely in their countries of origin and play a more meaningful role in the development of those countries achieving peace and sustainable development for all.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In Bangladesh we aspire to strengthen strategic partnership with the emerging economies and also with our traditional development partners.  I have no doubt that through rock-solid partnership, we are sure to achieve our goals peace and sustainable development. In the similar note I wish this side event a complete success and again thank the Government of Azerbaijan and the South Center.

Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu.