Distinguished Chief Guest Hon’ble Foreign Minister,

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Very good morning to you all.

I am pleased to join you all at this august gathering at the event on ‘SDGs and Bangladesh : Partnership with United Nations in Achieving SDGs’.  I express my sincere thanks to the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator for collaborating with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to organize this timely event.

Bangladesh considers SDGs’ implementation as a continuation of our efforts with MDGs. Bangladesh was very successful in attaining most of the MDG targets. Realization of the MDGs helped Bangladesh moving towards graduation from LDC status while attaining all three criteria for graduation from LDC. Our government has taken a number of initiatives to sustain the current pace of growth and to strengthen our development aspirations.

Bangladesh started making serious endeavor to implement SDG targets just after its adoption. We have aligned the SDG targets in our development plans including the Five Year Plan and the Vision 2021. Ministries and Divisions have been assigned with specific targets. The Ministries and Divisions have already finalized their own action plans to implement the SDGs in a coordinated manner. An Evaluation and Monitoring Committee has been formed to expedite the implementation of SDGs and monitor the progress.

We also completed the possible financial need assessment quite logically. We have identified the financial sources. We have developed the SDG Tracker to showcase the status of Bangladesh’s progress in implementing SDGs.

Excellencies,

United Nations has been playing a major role in the socio-economic development of Bangladesh since its independence, which we achieved under the leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the UN organizations operating in Bangladesh for their contribution in poverty eradication, health, food and nutrition security, education, eradicating inequality, and promoting gender equality. 

We welcome the UNSG’s reform of the UN system which has created space for rightly assigning the UN Resident Coordinator the responsibility to monitor all activities of UN organs. I am happy to inform you that Bangladesh supported the proposal of UN Secretary General for UN reform. We believe this will enhance the efficiency of the UN activities and increase the coordination among the agencies. As a manifestation of our commitment to partnership with UN, and support to the UN reforms - Hon’ble Prime Minister has decided to contribute an amount of US$ 100,000 USD to the office of the Resident Coordinator. She will make this announcement at the upcoming UNGA. I also welcome the decision of designating the UNRC as the co-chair of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).

As I have told earlier that we have prepared the financial estimation for SDGs implementation in Bangladesh, we also have identified the source of the finance. USD 928.48 billion at 2015-16 constant prices will be needed to implement SDGS in Bangladesh by 2030. 85.11% of the amount will be from domestic sources and 14.89% from external sources. UN Agencies need to play a very important role in this regard.  

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have our political commitments and policy support for successful implementation of the SDGs. We are mobilizing our resources, enhancing capabilities and empowering people with this end. We are also engaged in partnership with a wide range of international actors, private sectors and responsible civil society. Many innovation and development solutions have already been developed. But many more need to be done. SDGs will require much greater, long-term and assured global resources and support for sustainable development in developing countries like Bangladesh. I hope our friends in the UN system will continue their support and cooperation in our efforts.

I thank you all.