With your
permission, Sir, I would like to speak in Bangla, my
mother tongue.
I would like to warmly congratulate the President
on his well-deserved election to preside over the
General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session. I am
confident that his wise and able leadership will guide
the Assembly’s deliberations to a successful
conclusion. I would also like to express my deep
appreciation to His Excellency Mr. Miguel d’Escoto
Brockmann, President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-third session, for his sound leadership in
successfully steering the Assembly’s work during his
tenure. I should also like to pay tribute to Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon for his tireless and dedicated
efforts to reinvigorate the United Nations.
Thirty-five years ago, the father of our nation and
my father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in
his first address to the General Assembly from this
rostrum, expressed his gratitude to all who supported
our struggle for independence. He also declared his
commitment to democracy, good governance, human
rights and the rule of law. It is also my proud privilege
and great honour to extend the same commitment here
today on behalf of our country.
As members may know, for many years following
the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu and 18 other
members of our family, on 15 August 1975, by
misguided armed mutineers, Bangladesh was ruled by
dictators and quasi-dictators. Aside from a period in
the 1990s, the country continued to suffer from
unconstitutional rule, particularly in the most recent
years. Even I was sent into forced exile. But the will of
the people of Bangladesh and the good will of the
international community permitted my return home and
the holding of nation-wide elections on 29 December
2008.
Universally acclaimed as free, fair and credible,
and carried out under the supervision of United
Nations and international observers, the elections
heralded democracy in Bangladesh. The resounding
victory of my party, the Awami League, reflected the
people’s preference for democratic ideals, secularism
and an outright denial of all forms of extremism. The
elections included record high participation by young
voters and women.
The huge mandate given by the voters to my
Government also entrusted it with an equally huge
responsibility for delivering on people’s expectations.
Consequently, my Government has embarked on
achieving a digital Bangladesh by implementing its
Vision 2021 election manifesto. Our goal is to
transform Bangladesh into “Sonar Bangla” or “Bengal
of Gold”, as envisioned by Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman.
Despite all odds, Bangladesh is making great
strides in its socio-economic development. Education,
particularly for girls, is a priority of our Government,
receiving the largest single share of our annual budget.
Our Government has pledged to ensure 100 per cent
student enrolment at the primary level by 2010.
Accordingly, primary education has been made free —
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with free books — and compulsory for all children.
Provision has been made for free education for girls up
to the twelfth grade, and stipends are provided for girls
in rural secondary schools.
As for the Millennium Development Goals,
Bangladesh has been successful in removing gender
disparities in the net enrolment of boys and girls in
primary and secondary schools. Our Government is
now planning to provide free tuition for girls up
through the secondary level.
Since children are our future, our Government
runs a food-for-education/cash-for-education programme
providing food rations to poor primary school children
in rural areas. Our aim is to achieve full literacy by
2014.
Health is another major sector where our
Government is striving to make progress. During our
last period in power, we formulated a national health
policy whose main thrust was to ensure basic health
care for all without discrimination. A national strategy
for maternal health has also been adopted, which
provides quality services for safe motherhood.
Regarding infant mortality, our plan is to reduce the
infant mortality rate from 54 per thousand live births to
15 per thousand. Our plan is also to extend child
immunization programmes to reach 100 per cent of the
population during our present term.
During our last period in power, we initiated
programmes to establish one community health-care
centre for every 6,000 people, in order to bring primary
health-care services to people’s homes. Only 4,000 of
the first phase of 18,000 could be completed during the
period we were in power prior to the changeover of
government, and the programme was terminated. We
are now reactivating the programme.
Bangladesh is often cited for its social safety
programmes. A wide range of safety nets have been put
in place, such as cash and food transfer programmes,
micro-credit and other special poverty alleviation
programmes, and special programmes for minorities,
the marginalized, the disabled, the physically
challenged and the underprivileged. In our earlier
period in power, I had introduced an old age pension, a
pension for distressed women, Shanti Nibash or old
people’s homes, a Karmasangsthan Bank to provide
earnings to unemployed youth through productive job
creation, and Ashrayan or homes on Government-
owned land for homeless people, as well as sustainable
jobs.
An innovative programme instituted by my
current Government seeks to provide employment to at
least one member of each family. Currently, over a half
of our budgetary resources are allocated to reducing
the poverty level from 45 per cent to 15 per cent by
2021.
Food security has always been our Government’s
prime concern. During our earlier term in power, my
Government’s agricultural programmes made
Bangladesh self-sufficient in food, for which the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
presented us with its prestigious Ceres Award. After the
change in government, Bangladesh returned to being in
food deficit. This time around, our Government has
adopted a national food policy to ensure sustained food
security for all, enhance people’s access to food,
particularly for children, women and the elderly,
reduce food prices, increase food production by
reducing the price of fuel, fertilizer and irrigation, and
ensure supply of farm inputs.
On the international level, at the World Summit
on Food Security to be held in Rome in November
2009, Bangladesh will be seeking a global agreement
for the development of agriculture and the attainment
of food self-sufficiency in developing countries,
particularly the least developed countries (LDCs).
Substantial financial contributions from developed
countries, an agreement on sustainable agricultural
policies, the transfer of technology, equitable and fair
trade rules for food and agricultural products with
special preferential treatment for LDCs, and the
removal of agricultural subsidies in the developed
world will also be sought, in order to address the
challenges we face in ensuring the food security
critical for advancing our development agenda.
For some time now, climate change has been
adversely impacting our low-lying, deltaic, monsoonal
country. Although Bangladesh’s own contribution to
climate change is negligible, it is one of its worst
victims. Erratic floods, cyclones, droughts and
earthquakes have been disrupting our agriculture and
challenging our water resources, as well as our health,
energy and urban planning. In particular, cyclones
battering the coastal areas have taken countless lives,
and sudden floods have uprooted families by the
thousands and continue to do so every year. River bank
23 09-52586
erosion, landslides, soil degradation and deforestation
are causing millions of climate-change refugees. They
already greatly affect our densely populated cities. It is
alarming that a metre’s rise in the sea level would
inundate 18 per cent of our land mass, directly
impacting 11 per cent of our people. Scientific
estimates indicate that, of the 1 billion people expected
to be displaced worldwide by 2050 as a result of
climate-change factors, one in every 45 people in the
world and one in every seven in Bangladesh, would be
a victim.
Bangladesh has therefore decided to take some
measures immediately. Dredging all major rivers is at
the top of the agenda for adaptation to climate change.
Capital dredging projects will keep rivers in their
natural course, deepen them to hold more water,
restrict flooding, reduce flood damage, reclaim
inundated arable land and keep them navigable.
Maintenance dredging would then ensure the sustained
regulated flow of the rivers. With the rise in sea level,
the excavated silt could build, raise and fortify
embankments, increase green belts and help create
elevated flat ground for the homes of the displaced,
thereby discouraging them from moving to cities.
Meanwhile, 14,000 cyclone shelters have been
constructed, and more are on the way.
Those activities would obviously entail huge
costs. A climate-change trust fund has been established
with our own resources, but in order to implement the
projects the assistance of the international community
is imperative.
Rapid and unplanned urbanization, occupational
dislocation and lack of food, water and land security
are some of the consequences of climate change. The
affected communities would not only lose their homes.
They would also stand to lose their identity, nationality
and their very existence and, in some cases, their
countries. In December this year, we will meet in
Copenhagen for the fifteenth session of the Conference
of the Parties and, therefore, it is critical that the
outcome of the Conference reflect a commitment to
assured, adequate and easily accessible funding for
adaptation and to affordable, eco-friendly technology
transfer to developing countries, particularly to the
LDCs, as well as specific commitments to deeper cuts
in greenhouse emissions. Bangladesh would, of course,
make a strong call at the Conference to consider a new
legal regime to protect climate migrants under the
Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change that ensures the social,
cultural and economic rehabilitation of migrants
displaced through climate change.
On the vital issue of climate change, the recent
bold and courageous proposal of Prime Minister
Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom has caught the
imagination of States at the forefront of dealing with
climate change. Among his proposals, the proposed
fund to support the adaptation and mitigation
programmes of countries affected by climate change
has, in particular, won our support. It could be the
beginning of a systematic flow of funds towards
improving the adversely changing environmental
conditions around the globe. The Copenhagen
Conference should seriously consider his proposal. The
Conference must also be aware that climate-change
mitigation does not restrict the steps taken to alleviate
energy poverty, and that the post-2012 agreement
should incorporate predictable and legally binding
commitments to address the adaptation needs of low-
lying coastal States, small island countries and LDCs.
The world is caught in an economic recession, the
likes of which has not been seen since the Great
Depression of the 1930s. The economically vulnerable
countries, such as the LDCs, which are not responsible
for the crisis, have become its worst victims.
Bangladesh is faced with a sharp reduction in exports,
falling prices for primary commodities, declining
remittances and a severe credit crunch, leading to the
contraction of our economic growth, rising
unemployment and poverty.
The crisis is due to years of neglect of equity and
justice, including a fundamentally unfair international
financial structure that never changed with the needs of
the times. The need of the hour is the immediate
restructuring of the global financial and economic
system. The Bretton Woods institutions, namely, the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, must
accommodate a stronger presence of developing
countries, especially the LDCs. Indeed, a voting weight
proportionate to share capital has proved unsuited to
the Bretton Woods system.
Surely, fiscal stimulus packages would help
support global demand and aid recovery. However,
liberal trade concessions by developed countries, such
as duty- and quota-free market access and trade
capacity-building for developing countries, particularly
LDCs, would rescue them from dire straits. The early
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conclusion of the Doha Development Round of the
World Trade Organization trade negotiations would be
an important collective stimulus package for our
economies.
It is also the time for the countries of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development to fulfil their official development
assistance commitments to contribute 0.7 per cent of
their gross national income to developing countries and
0.2 per cent specifically to the least developed
countries by 2010, as reaffirmed in the Brussels
Programme of Action.
The economic turmoil has adversely affected
employment at the national level and worldwide. The
worst affected are the LDCs, both domestically and in
terms of employment abroad. Remittances constitute a
significant part of their gross domestic income.
However, recent restrictions on new admissions of
migrant workers and, even worse, their repatriation to
their home countries have resulted in socio-economic
instability in many countries. Therefore, recovery
measures should be designed in such a manner so as
not to adversely affect employment opportunities of
immigrant workers from developing countries.
Bangladesh is proud of its outstanding role as a
major troop-contributing country serving the United
Nations in maintaining peace and security worldwide.
Since 1988, Bangladesh has been involved in
32 United Nations peacekeeping operations in
24 different countries, contributing approximately
83,000 personnel. Today, Bangladesh is ranked second
with 9,567 peacekeepers serving in various United
Nations missions.
With pride I say that, throughout the years, 84 of
our valiant peacekeepers have laid down their lives for
the cause of peace under the auspices of the United
Nations. Sadly, despite our contributions and
sacrifices, Bangladesh does not have proportionate
representation in the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, nor does it have a say in the planning and
strategy design of peacekeeping missions. Indeed, this
situation calls for rectification on the basis of
proportional representation in all fairness.
As a peaceful nation involved in United Nations
peacekeeping efforts, Bangladesh is naturally opposed
to terrorism. Bangladesh is a party to all terrorism-
related United Nations Conventions, which is a
testament to our commitment to fighting that scourge.
We categorically reject the claims of those who cloak
themselves in the rhetoric of Islam or any other faith to
justify violence. Nationwide, we have taken stern
measures against militant groups and their leaders. We
are firmly opposed to violence and terrorism; instead,
we promote peace across the world. Bangladesh, in
sessions of the General Assembly, has spearheaded the
flagship resolution on the culture of peace. At last
year’s session of the General Assembly, the resolution
was sponsored by 124 nations.
The International Mother Language Day was
adopted by UNESCO, at the initiative of Bangladesh,
in recognition of 21 February 1952, when language
martyrs died for their mother tongue Bangla. Now
every year on that day UNESCO celebrates all
languages of the world. The Bangla language is spoken
by over 250 million people worldwide, primarily in
Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. The
Bangladesh Parliament therefore recently adopted a
resolution requesting the United Nations to declare
Bangla as one of its official languages. Given the rich
heritage of the Bangla language and its singular place
as a symbol of people’s faith in the power of languages
to sustain cultures and indeed the identity of nations, I
seek the support of the membership of the United
Nations General Assembly for its acceptance as an
official language of the United Nations.
At present we are witnessing a rapidly changing
world as a result of climate change, economic turmoil
and terrorism. It is crystal clear to those who wish to
open their eyes that we all belong to a global village
where we must live and work together. I therefore call
upon all States to discard short-sighted discords and
adopt a common resolve in facing today’s grim
challenges. Let us share each other’s responsibilities,
burdens and prosperity. After all, at stake is our
common and shared future. In reaching out to one
another, we will leave a harmonious world for our
children and future generations thereafter.
May Bangladesh live forever! Long live the
United Nations!
The Acting President: On behalf of the General
Assembly, I wish to thank the Prime Minister of the
People’s Republic of Bangladesh for the statement she
has just made.