Statement by H.E. Mr. M. Saifur Rahman
Honourable Minister for Finance and Planning
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Mr. Chairman,

I deem it a great honour to address the Twenty-Eighth Session of the Governing Council of International Fund for Agricultural Development in this eternal city of Rome. On behalf of my delegation and on my own behalf I take this opportunity to heartily congratulate Mr. Lennart Bage on his renewal mandate as President of IFAD which is a fitting recognition to his dynamic stewardship. I wish him a very successful tenure.

Mr. Chairman,

IFAD new Calendar for the year 2005 with printed slogan that I saw the other day reads ‘Enabling the rural poor to overcome poverty I believe, this statement captures the sprit of IFAD’s mandate aimed at livelihood improvement and food security of the rural poor who are always vulnerable, marginalized and powerless It will be pertinent to note that the devastating effect of the Tsunami had been far greater on poorer people compared to the rich areas of the countries that faced this disaster. IFAD’s innovative and strategic approach, as we have seen and learnt, is to support the rural areas to break the poverty cycle by improving their own living through a sustainable development generating pro poor employment and income generation to participate meaningfully in the socio-economic process.

As we understand, poverty has many fronts. It is about income levels, it is about food security; about asset basis; about quality of life. It is about vulnerabilities. So our fight against poverty has to be waged in many fronts. And there we find IFAD with its innovative ideas and effective strategies as a willing partner. IFAD’s novel approach, as evident now, enables marginal and small f to access and utilize micro-finance services to invest in farm and off-farm enterprises. Such services together with linkages to ‘technical support enables these marginal and poor farmers to increase agricultural productivity, diversify income sources raising household income, reducing vulnerability and improving food security. This approach has worked well for Bangladesh and I believe other LDCs will have benefited through its strategy.

Mr. Chairman,

Now, I would like to share with you our vision and mission towards a poverty-free Bangladesh based on equity and social justice. Despite high population density; decreasing availability of agricultural land; a very high vulnerability to natural disasters and land degradation the country has made important gains in the fight against poverty. In this connection I would like to inform you that Bangladesh supports its development goals through mobilizing mainly internal resources and the yearly budgetary outlay runs over 10 billion dollar of which, 10% are from external resources. Of this 10% external resources two thirds comes from multilateral sources and only one third comes from bilateral sources. This is to highlight our determination to self-reliant economic growth and poverty alleviation.

Bangladesh enjoys one of the lowest volatility in growth rate by global standards. It has also the success story of achieving significant decline in population growth rate and has graduated to the club “of medium human development” countries according to UNDP’s ranking. Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in Primary and Secondary education and government is determined to push it to vocational and higher levels. Our focus on rural development and rural growth-centers has provided the rural entrepreneurs quick market access having socio-economic dimensions. As regards Bangladesh’s progress towards Millennium Development Goals ( MDGs), we are well ahead on the path towards reducing income poverty and is ‘on track’ on a number of targets like infant mortality, child morality, eradication of hunger, expansion of primary and secondary education and reducing gender disparity. Despite such progress, the aggregate poverty rates, remains very high. Extreme poverty, mostly seasonal, still persist in some rural areas.

The government of Bangladesh recognizes agriculture and rural economy as the key driver of pro-poor growth strategy in light of our Rural Development Policy. Hence under the Annual Development Programme (ADP), Govt. has been allocating substantial amount of money for rural development and rural institutions building. For the years 2002 to 2005, the govt. has invested US$ 1.2 billion dollar (1,190 million) in those areas. But the problem is so staggering that even more investment is needed for rural development and employment generation.

Mr. Chairman,

As noted earlier we have made not enough in our poverty reduction endeavours. GDP growth of 5.5% has been achieved in the FY 2004. Inflation has come down to 5%. Initiatives have been taken to revitalize the Capital & Share markets. Steps have been taken to boost trade & commerce and to reduce export-import and regional trade gaps. In education sector students enjoy full free schooling at Primary level and free schooling for females up to Higher Secondary level. Moreover, stipends are given to the female students to empower women and eliminate gender disparity. In the financial year 2004-2005 we have made maximum budget allocation of US$ 887 million for Education sector, US$ 643 million for Health & Nutrition, Population and Family Welfare sector.

Mr. Chairman,

Internal resources of poor countries are not enough to make up the huge gap that is needed to reach the MDGs. Obviously, we need to do lot more to ensure adequate funding for poverty alleviation and social development. I would like to call on the donor community to increase their contributions to the poor countries and agencies which are explicitly mandated to fight poverty and hunger. It is not out of context at this stage, considering that 2005 is the beginning of the negotiations for the 7 replenishment for IFAD, that donor community is called on to increase their contributions to IFAD so that the agency, known for its anti-poverty programmes worldwide, could dispense its responsibility effectively.

Mr. Chairman,

IFAD, has always been a trusted partner of Bangladesh in its development and endeavour. The contribution of IFAD has particularly been laudable in the areas of aquaculture, technical support in micro-finance, agricultural extension and intensification, rural infrastructure and crop diversification. Given the importance of rural sector in Bangladesh economy and the significant contribution it makes to Gross Domestic Product (50%), the supportive role of IFAD in our rural development efforts has been quite significant With its local level operations in 114 countries, the projects undertaken by the organization have enabled many to increase the standard of living by fostering income generation, social development, gender equity, improved nutritional status and environmental sustainability. We look forward to working in close collaboration with IFAD to meet the future challenges, particularly to achieve the Millennium Development Goals “to halve by the year 2015 the portion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day”.

Mr. Chairman,

In the end, I would like to wish IFAD a great success in its endeavour to help governments fighting rural poverty and at the same time I would like to reassure the governing council that IFAD will always find Bangladesh a supporting partner in achieving its laudable missions to fight poverty in all its dimension.

Thank you all ladies and gentlemen.