The two-day Bangladesh Development Forum 2015, a high level flagship event of Bangladesh government, begins on Sunday after a pause of five years, says a press release issued on Saturday. Addressing a pre-event media briefing at NEC auditorium on Saturday, senior secretary of Economic Relations Division (ERD) Mohammad Mejbahuddin said the strategies of the 7th Five Year plan and the Vision 2021 will be placed before development partners seeking suggestions over how Bangladesh can attain the SDGs. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the high-level flagship event of the government at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital in the morning. She will also open a development fair there on the sidelines of the forum to be organised by the ERD. The BDF will bring together ministers, top government bureaucrats, political representatives of donor countries, senior development partner officials and civil society members to ensure a strengthened partnership for Bangladesh’s development. President-designate of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Jin Liqun and vice president of Asian Development Bank (ADB) Wencai Zhang will also attend the inaugural session of the forum. “The issue of infrastructural development will be given top priority at the forum for the sake of steady and higher GDP growth,” Mejbahuddin said. Various measures taken by the government for ensuring good governance and gender equity will also come up at the forum. As this forum is being taken place just after world leaders launched the post-2015 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), it will provide an opportunity to discuss how to take forward these globally agreed goals at the national level, Mejbahuddin added. The keynote session will be devoted to ‘Macro-economic management: A journey from lower to higher middle income country through an inclusive growth strategy ensuring SDGs’. This will be followed by six thematic working sessions centring on the 7th Five-Year Plan and SDG implementation. The themes of these working sessions will be: agriculture, food security and climate change; strengthening economic foundations: strategies for development of infrastructure; governance and development: strengthening partnership for effective development cooperation; health and quality education: offering a secure future for all; social protection: leaving no one behind; and mainstreaming gender in economic development. It will conclude with an outcome document spelling out necessary joint steps in each of these six thematic areas. The ERD is also arranging a development fair on the BICC premise where government, non-government, business organisations and donors will take part in it through 41 stalls. Development activities of Bangladesh will be showcased at the stalls. The last BDF meeting was held in Dhaka on 15-16 February in 2010.
