PM Hasina has chalked a roadmap to tackle the Coronavirus crisis in developing countries like Bangladesh. She urged the United Nation to play the catalytic role in this plan. Anika Khan reports.
During the ‘High-Level Event on Financing for Development in the Era of Covid-19 and Beyond’ prerecorded speech held at the UN headquarter on Tuesday, PM Hasina presented six points before the world leaders.
She said, “The 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda can be our blueprint to overcome this crisis.”
The six points made by the honorable PM were as follows:
- Measures need to be taken by the G-7, G-20, MDBs, IFIs, and the OECD countries to scale the concessional finance fiscal stimulus and debt relief measures.
- Private finance and investments need to be diverted to third world countries. There is a dire need to close the digital gap and make progressive science and innovation ideas accessible to developing countries.
- Jobs need to be secured for migrant workers during the pandemic and the post-pandemic phase. Thus, it is essential to set up the right policies to reverse the downward trend of remittance flow.
- Economies need to fulfill their promises in establishing a Quota and duty-free market access; make technological support and financing more accessible for developing nations.
- New international support measures need to be established to ensure the progression of the least developed nations until 2030.
- Last but not the least; she called for immediate efforts to address the crisis. She said, “more vigorous efforts are required to finance climate actions and resilient recovery”.
Moreover, 71 to 100 million people are estimated to be driven to poverty due to the global pandemic. Staggering reports have revealed over 400 million jobs lost worldwide in the second quarter of 2020.
PM Hasina has also addressed the destruction of nature, climate change, and the ongoing Covid-19 crisis in one of her articles published in the Financial Times.
2020 has been a test for Bangladesh with the global pandemic and the natural calamities hitting the country the same year. Cyclone Amphan has left a trail of catastrophic devastations in May followed by monsoon floods that destroyed acres of croplands and left thousands of people in Bangladesh homeless.
PM Hasina addressed the planetary emergency in her article, stating that climate change stems from the lack of sustainability of our activities. She has called upon to work towards a safer, greener, and cleaner world. In a thought-provoking Bengali proverb, she said,
“‘Bhabia korio kaj, koria bhabio na’ [think before your actions, do not regret after you Are done]”
