by Naim-Ul-Karim
DHAKA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- More than 10 million people in Bangladesh currently enjoy direct benefits from a wide range of developing activities of the United Nations Development Program in the South Asian country, Country Director of the UNDP, Stefan Priesner, told Xinhua in an interview.
"We've directly affected lives of more than 10 million people in Bangladesh positively through our different programs for institutional reforms and urban-rural poverty reduction," he said.
"Indirectly the cooperation of UNDP benefits all of Bangladesh people as we're helping in parliamentary election, police and justice reforms."
Bangladesh's achievement in Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is very good but it needs to further focus on higher education of women, labor force, women's employment, nutrition for children and sustainable environment, Priesner said at his office in Bangladesh capital Dhaka Tuesday.
Mentioning the immensely important role of the UNDP in Bangladesh due to its very close partnership with the country's government since it embarked on its journey in Bangladesh in July 1972, he said: "We're very proud of our results that have so far been achieved."
Admiring the successive Bangladeshi governments' efforts in poverty eradication, he said: "I think with the current growth rate Bangladesh can graduate into a middle income nation by 2020 and slash extreme poverty."
About 31.5 percent of population in the country are still living below the poverty line with less than one U.S. dollar income a day, according to the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Bangladesh, a nation of over 150 million people whose per capita annual income is about 818 U.S. dollars.
In line with the country's Outline Perspective Plan 2010-2021, the government is committed to cutting extreme poverty to 10 percent and achieving double-digit GDP growth by 2021 from about 6 percent currently.
"But I think the agenda should be more ambitious because it ( the country) can do even better than this. Middle income status is only one indicator. From the UNDP side poverty reduction is equally important," said Priesner.
"What we basically press about is the vision of the government to achieve middle income status while also reducing poverty, focusing on good governance and a working democracy and sustainable environment."
Priesner said one of the biggest urban poverty reduction programs of the UNDP in the world is in Bangladesh which was launched in 2008 and due to be completed in 2015. "It's helping more than 3 million urban poor of the country's 23 cities including capital Dhaka."
Apart from this, he said the UNDP is also playing a role in long term sustainable socio-economic development of rural Bangladesh. "We've so far helped 25,000 rural women each representing a family to join mainstream development activities through our programs."
UNDP has also been working in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, an area in southeastern Bangladesh where about 50 percent of the population are tribal, since 2004 and reached more than 500,000 people through its poverty reduction activities, he added.
"All ingredients are in place, It's an amazing nation, people are skilled, motivatated and hardworkig if you give them tools then the country can make it," Priesner said. "I am absolutely confident that Bangladesh has a bright future to happen."
"It's important not only to focus on growth as it's a means toward end, end is human development. Growth is very important but the other dimensions are equally important."
"We believe that good governance is one of the most important development areas in Bangladesh because if the government strengthens itself it will be able to better deliver core services like nutrition, health, water, sanitation, quality education and information."
UNDP has helped with the local government strengthening and bringing services close to the poor, he noted.
Regarding unequal employment between men and women, Priesner said less than 30 percent of women are fully employed. "We need to focus very specifically on women's employment. We also need to focus on vocational training for women."
"No difference is any more between boys and girls in primary and secondary education in Bangladesh but in higher education there is certainly a big gap. Many boys get vocational training while girls and women face hurdle due to social reasons which created unfair disadvantage for them in labor market."
He said disaster risk reduction has emerged as one of the highlighting areas of cooperation between the UNDP and Bangladesh.
Asked about a Memorandum of Understanding which Xinhua News Agency and the UNDP inked to establish a strategic partnership and enhance cooperation in fields such as poverty reduction, he said, "I'm very pleased about this partnership. Xinhua is an important international news agency."
"Story on poverty reduction needs to be communicated to make it daily news and there are so many good things are happening on poverty reduction everyday. Xinhua has huge role to play in this connection and hopefully we'll have many more occasions to talk to each other."
