I congratulate
President Ashe very warmly on his election to the
presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-eighth
session. I congratulate also Mr. Vuk Jeremi. for his able
leadership as President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-seventh session. I admire the Secretary-General,
Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his wisdom, bold initiatives and
successes as head of the United Nations.
Rapid technological innovations are transforming
our world. The changes involved are also creating new
conflicts within and among States. The vulnerable, the
deprived and the disadvantaged have been the most
affected. That reminds me of my father and the Father
of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
and his visionary call, in his first appearance before the
General Assembly, in 1974, for a world order based on
peace and justice and a global economic arrangement to
free the world of poverty, hunger and aggression. As his
daughter, I am proud to have been among leaders who
adopted the Millennium Declaration in 2000, to have
been at the review of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) in 2010 and to be participating now
in the transition from the MDGs to the post-2015
development agenda.
I hope that this year’s theme — “The post-2015
development agenda: setting the stage” — will help us
to design a pragmatic strategy for those goals. The Open
Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
and the newly established High-level Political Forum
are making good progress. Our experience also will
be useful in overcoming the challenges to the MDGs
by 2015 and in preparing the post-2015 development
agenda.
Bangladesh has submitted to the United Nations
a draft of the post-2015 development agenda that
covers socioeconomic and environmental goals and the
resources required for achieving them. We also held a
Global Leadership Meeting on Population Dynamics
in Dhaka, whose declaration placed human individuals
at the centre of the entire development agenda. The
declaration incorporated population growth, ageing,
urbanization and migration as the priority issues.
The meeting also strongly identified the need for
mainstreaming migration in the post-2015 development
agenda, particularly to accommodate the expected
climate migrants.
Our aim is to become a middle-income country
and to realize our Vision 2021 by setting goals that
are in line with the MDGs. We have already met or
are on track to meet Millennium Development Goals
1 through 6. Poverty has been reduced from 56.6 per
cent in 1991 to below 26 per cent today. In the past four
and a half years, the average gross domestic product
growth rate remained at 6.4 per cent; 50 million people
have joined the middle income group; export earnings
rose from $10.53 billion in 2006 to $27.03 billion
today; remittances increased from $5 billion in 2006
to $14.5 billion; foreign currency reserves improved
from $3.49 billion in 2006 to $16 billion; and power
production capacity also increased from 3,200
megawatts in 2006 to 9,059 megawatts today, to name
a few indicators.
Bangladesh is therefore often called a model of
economic development and the standard-bearer of
South Asia. Our achievements received an MDG award,
a South-South Award, a Global Diversity Award and
a food award for 2013 from the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations. Those recognitions
were achieved largely due to the practice of the
principles found in the resolution entitled “People’s
empowerment and development” (resolution 67/107),
which I submitted and which the General Assembly
adopted at its sixty-seventh session.
Using state-of-the-art digital technology, people
today are getting more than 200 services from 4,582
digitized Union Information and Service Centres.
Rural women are also receiving health-care services
from 15,500 digitally interconnected community health
clinics and union health centres, which have extended
health-care services to people’s doorsteps. Advanced
cell phone technologies are also providing services to
more than 100 million subscribers.
I believe that real national development is achievable
only through education. Education is the main driving
force for attaining the peace and prosperity of a nation
and for upholding justice, the rule of law, democratic
values and people’s empowerment. Real development
also demands the empowerment of women and their
equal participation with men in all walks of life.
Our new educational policy provides girls free
education up to higher secondary school, monthly
stipends for 11.9 million students of poor families, and
free textbooks to all students up to the secondary level.
Our policies have also helped develop women leaders
from the grass roots to the topmost level. In politics,
so far, 14,000 women have been elected to local
Government bodies and 70 to Parliament. Five women
are serving as Ministers and one as Whip. Bangladesh
is possibly the only nation today with women occupying
the position of Prime Minister, Speaker, Leader of the
Opposition and Deputy Leader, all at the same time.
The 10 per cent of posts reserved for women have helped
many succeed in reaching high positions in the judicial
and administrative branches, in diplomatic posts and in
the armed forces and law enforcement agencies.
Our policies of empowering the people, particularly
the vulnerable, include social safety-net programmes,
such as vulnerable group feeding and development;
housing and livelihood for the homeless; monthly
pensions for senior citizens, widows, destitute women,
insolvent freedom fighters and people with disabilities;
maternity allowances for a total of 4.3 million
people; and food and nutrition security for more than
1 million rural people through One House, One Farm
schemes, to name a few. The disadvantaged and the
physically challenged are provided with education,
skill development and interest-free loans for self-
employment and, in the formal sector, a 1 per cent quota
has been reserved for them. For those with autism and
other developmental disorders, a resolution on autism
spectrum disorder was introduced by Bangladesh at
the sixty-seventh session of the General Assembly
(resolution 67/82). It was adopted, unifying us all in our
quest to provide them their rightful place in the world.
However, our progress in all spheres has been
sadly held back because of climate change. Fraught
with increasing natural disasters, Bangladesh faces
a calamitous future due to global warming and sea
level rise. It is estimated that a 1˚ Celsius increase in
temperature would lead to a 1 metre rise of the sea
level, submerging one fifth of Bangladesh and forcing
30 million climate migrants to move elsewhere,
thereby creating crisis of a huge magnitude within
and beyond our borders. I therefore reiterate the call
that I made at the sixty-fourth session of the General
Assembly (see A/64/PV.4) for a legal regime to ensure
the social, cultural and economic rehabilitation of
climate migrants. I again call for a fast-track funding
mechanism for least developed countries to ensure
sustained funding for the realization of our adaptation
and mitigation action plans on climate change.
Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971
through monumental sacrifices. Our sacrifice began
with bloodshed to preserve our mother tongue,
Bangla, on 21 February 1952. At my Government’s
initiative, UNESCO immortalized that sacrifice in
1999 by UNESCO by its declaration of 21 February as
International Mother Language Day. The measures we
have taken so far in that regard include the establishment
of the International Mother Language Institute in Dhaka
and asking the United Nations to declare Bangla as one
of its official languages. I thank the United Nations for
introducing a Bangla website and radio programme,
and the United Nations Development Programme for
publishing its Asian report in Bangla.
During our 1971 war of liberation, Pakistani
occupation forces — in collaboration with their local
cohorts — perpetrated genocide, rape, arson and
crimes against humanity. More than 3 million people
sacrificed their lives and a quarter of a million women
lost their honour to achieve independence. Since then,
it has been the ardent hope and aspiration of the nation
to bring the perpetrators to justice. Accordingly, our
Government constituted two war crimes tribunals
under the international crimes tribunals act of 1973
to try them. The trials are being held with the highest
standards of judicial practices. The successful
completion of the trials would heal the wounds of
war and move Bangladesh on to the road of peace and
progress. I urge the international community to support
the trials process for the sake of justice, human rights
and the rule of law.
The anti-liberation forces have always been working
to destroy the secular nature of our nation. Under the
direct patronage of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-
Jamaat alliance Government from 2001 to 2006, they
coalesced to form terrorist outfits, which began with
bomb and grenade attacks killing people, especially
secular leaders and members of Parliament. On
21 August 2004, they made an attempt to assassinate
me by lobbing 13 grenades at a public rally that I was
addressing to protest the grenade attack on the British
High Commissioner on 21 May 2004. In that attack,
24 people were killed and more than 500 injured.
Miraculously, I survived. As members are aware, earlier
a more brutal attack was carried out, on 15 August
1975, killing my father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, the Father of the Nation, and 18 members of
my family. My younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, and I
survived only because we were out of the country at
that time. The gruesome attacks cemented my resolve
to eliminate terrorism and to adopt tough anti-terrorism
and anti-money-laundering acts.
At home, our Government is entrenching democracy
in order to ideologically defeat terrorism and extremism.
Our commissions on elections, anti-corruption, human
rights and information have been strengthened. During
our Government’s tenure, the elections commission has
conducted 5,777 elections, electing 63,995 persons to
the Parliament, city corporations, municipalities and
other local bodies, without receiving any complaint.
The elections commission has therefore amply proven
that it can hold free, fair and credible national elections.
With respect to foreign affairs, we aim to cement
peace by resolving outstanding issues with our
neighbours, by increasing cooperation with them
through strengthening connectivity and by maintaining
good relations with all countries of the world according
to the dictum of the Father of the Nation, “Friendship
towards all, malice towards none”.
Our commitment to global peace is proved by
our role as a top troop-contributor in United Nations
peacekeeping operations and as a Vice-Chair of the
Peacebuilding Commission. It is also reflected by
our position on disarmament and the nonproliferation
agenda. During my first term as Prime Minister, from
1996 to 2001, Bangladesh became the first South Asian
nation to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.
In my current term, I am happy to again be the first in
the region to have signed the Arms Trade Treaty, and
to have acceded to the remaining instruments of the
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons at this
year’s treaty-signing event. Our role in world affairs
is based on justice and democratic values, with the
aim of ensuring international peace and security and
supporting disarmament.
The promotion of cultural expression and interfaith
and intercultural dialogue is essential for peace and
development in the post-2015 era. My personal initiatives
to disseminate those values at home and abroad were
recognized by UNESCO in 2012, when we were awarded
the Cultural Diversity Medal. Culture is integral to the
identity of every State Member of the United Nations.
Therefore, my country has proposed — to UNESCO and
in the General Assembly’s thematic debate on culture
and development — including culture as a theme of the
post-2015 development agenda. I reiterate that call here
today and request the support of all present.
Bangladesh is hampered by resource constraints
and inadequate external assistance. To achieve the
MDGs by 2015 and to implement the post-2015
development goals, we need our development partners
to honour their pledges to contribute 0.7 per cent of
gross national product (GNP) as official development
assistance (ODA) and 0.2 per cent of GNP as ODA to
the least developed countries (LDCs). I urge them to
also grant LDCs duty-free and quota-free access to
their markets, as well as an equal voice in the Bretton
Woods and international financial institutions and
the free movement of labour. The implementation of
part IV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
is also essential for the benefit of both sending and
receiving countries.
The elaboration of the post-2015 development
agenda is a daunting task for all States Members of the
United Nations. We must be united in agreeing on a
common framework for the development agenda that
would fulfil our aspiration to build a just, prosperous
and sustainable world where no person or nation is
left behind. Bangladesh, representing 160 million
progressive and resilient people, will lead those efforts
up front.
The globalized world has unique complexities
that sometimes threaten peace. Justice-based policies
are imperative to eradicate such threats. Justice is
the panacea for peace that enables development and
progress, which in turn dispel the challenges posed to
freedom, democracy, human rights, the environment
and the equitable sharing of transboundary resources
such as water, among others, as well as the challenges
posed by climate change.
Our resolution on the culture of peace, introduced
at the Assembly every year, is drafted in that spirit and
is always adopted by consensus. It conveys the message
of mutual respect for peoples and nations in our bid
for a world of peace and promise. I believe that we all
aspire to such a world for our future generations.