National Statement delivered by H.E Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations Ambassador Mr. Masud Bin Momen at the General Debate of the High Level Political Forum of ECOSOC
18 July 2018 UNHQs
Mr. President,
Building on its success in the implementation of the MDGs, Bangladesh embarked on the journey of implementation of the SDGs under the leadership of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. We integrated the SDGs into our national development plans. Our political commitment to the SDGs is demonstrated by the fact that the implementation of the SDGs is coordinated at the highest political level. We informed the international community of our efforts in implementing the SDGs by participating in the VNR last year.
Bangladesh has successfully completed the “Mapping of Ministries/Divisions by Targets in the Implementation of SDGs”, a first formal document towards implementation of the SDGs in Bangladesh. We have also prepared a “National Action Plan for SDGs Implementation”.
SDG Tracker was designed and developed to create a data repository for monitoring the implementation of the SDGs and other national development goals. It will also facilitate the tracking of progress against each goal and target through multiple visualization schemes.
In recognition of the fact that SDGs are transformative and comprehensive, the government of Bangladesh has adopted a “whole of society” approach for achieving the SDGs.
Creating a knowledge-based society through the use of ICT is our aim and Bangladesh has been investing a lot to transform it into a Digital Bangladesh.
However, there are enormous challenges that we face while implementing the SDGs. Mobilizing resources for the SDGs is the biggest hurdle for Bangladesh like many other developing countries. The “SDGs Financing Strategy: Bangladesh Perspective” estimates that annual average cost of the implementation of the SDGs in Bangladesh would be USD 66.32 billion in the SDG era.
We are also facing a considerable data gap for monitoring the SDGs. We are focusing on building capacity of our national statistics office.
Tackling inequality and creating decent jobs in the wake of the 4th industrial revolution would be a big challenge. We will have to adopt policies to reform our education and skill development sector so that the jobs created by the new technologies can be availed and the benefits of the technological change are shared broadly. This will indeed require huge investments.
Frequent and severe impacts of climate change continue to strain our agriculture sector and food security. Although we are a resilient nation, it would be challenging to double the agricultural productivity by 2030 which is a SDG target.
Bangladesh this year has qualified for graduation from the LDC category for the first time. We have pledged to become a middle-income country by 2021. We would urge our development and trading partners to continue their support to us so that we can be successful in achieving SDGs and making our graduation sustainable.
Before concluding, I must express gratitude to all delegations for their constructive contributions during the negotiations of this year’s HLPF Ministerial Declaration.
I thank Mr. President.