A major challenge for Bangladesh is to mobilise and ensure effective use of the resources needed for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the SDGs financing strategy, Bangladesh has estimated the amount of resources that will be required, financing sources, and financing instruments and strategies. The SDGs Financing Strategy: Bangladesh Perspective prepared by the General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Ministry provides an estimate of the annual resource gap and an opportunity to revise the government interventions and financing strategies accordingly.
The estimates show that an additional amount, over the current provision of investment related to SDGs by public sectors and external sources, would be US$ 928.48 billion at 2015-16 prices. This amount would be required for SDGs implementation over the period of FY 2017-FY 2030, which is 19.75 per cent of the accumulated gross domestic product (GDP) under the 7FYP extended growth scenario. The annual average cost of SDGs would be US$ 66.32 billion (at constant prices) for this period. The costing exercise covers close to 80 per cent of the 169 targets of SDGs.
The financing strategy suggests five potential sources of gap financing. These are: private sector financing, public sector financing, public-private partnership (PPP), external financing comprising foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign aid and grants, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).On average, public sector would account for around 34.0 per cent of the financing requirement, whereas private sector has a share of around 42.0 per cent during 2017-30 period. Many goals and associated targets of SDGs have large public goods aspect whose provision would require higher public funding relative to private sector's contribution. The average share of PPP is 6.0 per cent. The external sources would constitute close to 15 per cent where Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would make up 10.0 per cent and foreign aid would comprise 5.0 per cent of financing gap. Finally, the NGOs would contribute around 4.0 per cent during the period.
SDGs targets in performance agreement: The government has introduced Annual Performance Agreement (APA), a results-based performance management system, to help ensure a systematic review of all ministries/ divisions to ensure higher accountability and effectiveness in public organisations. Under this system, an APA is signed between the Secretary of concerned ministry/division and the Cabinet Secretary. The APA is expected to enhance the performance of concerned ministries/ divisions involved in SDGs implementation.
The 'whole of society' approach to SDGs: The government has consistently been adopting the 'whole of society' approach to the preparation of national development plans and policy documents of national importance. The government has also adopted this approach throughout the processes of SDGs preparation. For example, the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Bangladesh Proposal to UN (GED 2013) was prepared with inputs from multiple stakeholders including national experts, private sector and CSO representatives, and development partners.
The government has adopted this strong tradition to the implementation of ambitious SDGs. Several consultations on 'Stakeholders' Engagement on the SDGs Implementation in Bangladesh' were held with representatives from NGOs, CSOs, businesses, development partners, ethnic minorities, professional groups, labour associations, women network and the media. The consultations have sought to raise more awareness, interest and commitment to create deeper engagement of all stakeholders towards attaining SDGs.
In view of the critical role of the private sector in attaining SDGs, three consultation meetings between the government, private sector and the UN System on the 'Role of the Private Sector in Facilitating the SDGs' were held to highlight the broad outlines for private sector actions on SDGs implementation. The government also appreciated the value of media in creating awareness of people that the agenda guiding development up to 2030 is sustainable development. Effective and coherent role of both print and electronic media in creating SDGs awareness and branding of success is strongly needed.
HIGHLIGHTING 'LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND' AGENDA: The above shows that Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in terms of institutionalising the SDGs implementation mechanism and developing the integrated policy framework for the 2030 Agenda. For achieving Vision 2041 and emerging as a high income country by 2041, the country has adopted the Second Perspective Plan 2021-2041 and is currently preparing the 8th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) that aim to 'leave no one behind' (LNOB) and promote equitable and inclusive growth and development. Without quicker improvements among those who are lagging behind presently (e.g. the disadvantaged social groups and those living in the lagging regions), the existing disparities will not narrow down and these groups/regions will continue to be left behind; hence the policy priority is to focus on 'endeavour to reach the furthest behind first'.
Still, nearly 10.0 per cent of the population in Bangladesh live under extreme poverty and the top 10 per cent of the population hold around 38.0 per cent of total income; and several regions such as the north western, southern coastal, haor, and the CHT regions are lagging behind. There are also several marginalised and socioeconomically 'fallen behind' communities in the country including ethnic minority groups, tea garden workers, cleaners/sweepers, landless peasants, transgender community, commercial sex workers, environmental refugees, traditional fisher folk, traditional artisans, chronically ill poor people, rural extreme poor groups particularly older women, homeless and unemployed and their families, persons with physical and mental disabilities, and poor female-headed households.
Using the evidence of lagging socio-economic groups/regions and their underlying causal factors behind backwardness, several agendas for the 8th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) with regard to the SDGs have been identified. The 8th Plan policy framework aims to focus on four pillars: (i) moderate income inequality; (ii) reduce gaps in health, nutrition and education; (iii) remove social and gender exclusion and discrimination; and (iv) introduce explicit budgeting for the marginalised people and lagging behind regions.
Further, six specific LNOB action programmes for the 8th Plan have been identified. These are: Action 1: Adopt an integrated strategy to develop a national database and strategic LNOB fund for the marginalised groups within ADP; Action 2: Develop and implement region- and community-specific strategic actions to combat marginalities; Action 3: Formulate target specific action plans to increase income levels and access to productive resources of the lagging behind communities; Action 4: Address limited access to education, health and nutrition services in the lagging regions and marginalised communities on a priority basis; Action 5: Increase socio-political participation of marginalised communities through adopting integrated approaches; and Action 6: Ensure special focus on lagging behind regions/communities in all national development plans and strategies.
These will be crafted within the broader LNOB strategies for the 8th Plan that cover cross-cutting and national level issues, such as strengthening inclusive growth, ensuring financial inclusion, reducing income and social inequality, accessing quality education and health services, adopting appropriate macroeconomic policy, addressing pockets of lagging social groups/regions, and adopting initiatives at the local level for LNOB.
For addressing LNOB, Bangladesh will use both industrial and agricultural policies to facilitate employment-centred structural transformation. This requires greater public investment in infrastructure; adequate development finance to channel required credit to specific productive activities including MSMEs; and well-managed agricultural and industrial policies with focus on technology and productivity growth.
Bangladesh will also use effective governance capacity to transform the structure of employment, nurture mutual interdependence and symbiotic relationship between industry and agriculture through supporting expansion of agri-based industries and fostering demand and production linkages, generate remunerative employment and productive occupational opportunities, and social policies that improve health, nutrition, education, skill levels and well-being of the lagging population groups and regions.
Along with eliminating gender and other disparities, the policies will underscore the intrinsic value of LNOB in Bangladesh. For practical reasons, the 8th Plan policies will put more emphasis on equality of opportunities relative to equality of outcomes. The action framework of the Plan will strive to install fair processes and interventions to protect those who have fallen behind and emphasise on investments in equal opportunities to produce a more equitable society for the future with LNOB.
Further, regular monitoring of progress is important to assess the degree of convergence between the left behind and the relatively advanced population groups and the lagging and the well-off regions of Bangladesh. In addition to reviewing progress measured by appropriate multi-dimensional indicators adopted for the purpose, trends in policy implementation and government allocations will be assessed as well. For success, timely availability of data on the indicators disaggregated by different population groups and geographic locations is a major challenge and special efforts will be given to overcome the data availability issue.
Finally, LNOB has issues that are directly or indirectly related to the daily work of the local governments and local institutions. For implementing the LNOB agenda, one important element is to utilise the potential of local action to drive development and create appropriate legal and financial frameworks to support all local partners in playing their part in the achievement of the integrated and universal LNOB agenda.
In this context, four areas are highlighted: (i) Apply LNOB lens to the local strategies and policy/programme tools; (ii) Leverage local institutions' ground-level data and information to help analyse progress in achieving LNOB; (iii) Upgrade in-house capacity for integrated planning and policy-making at the grassroots level, and provide support to the local government to create a space for sharing mutual experiences on implementing the LNOB agenda; and (iv) Raise awareness on LNOB among partners and the people.
Local government and other local institutions (e.g. NGO-MFIs) are the catalysts of change and are best placed to link the LNOB agenda with local communities in Bangladesh. Localising LNOB is a process to empower all local stakeholders especially the local government institutions (LGIs), aimed at making sustainable and inclusive development more responsive, and therefore, relevant to local needs and aspirations. The LNOB goals can be reached only if local actors fully participate, not only in the implementation, but also in agenda-setting and monitoring. Participation requires that all relevant actors are involved in the decision-making process, through consultative and participative mechanisms, at the local and national levels within the overall LNOB framework.
Dr Shamsul Alam is Member (Senior Secretary), General Economics Division), Bangladesh Planning Commission and a Recipient of Ekushe Padak in Economics in 2020.
