Find lasting solution to Rohingya crisis
Planning Minister MA Mannan yesterday urged the international community to find a permanent solution to the Rohingya crisis.
He said the recent influx of more than one million Rohingyas from Myanmar was a considerable stress on Bangladesh’s development efforts.
“I call upon the international community to come forward in support of these forcibly displaced people and to devise a permanent solution to this problem,” he said.
He was addressing a session at the 75th annual conference of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) in Bangkok, Thailand.
The minister said Bangladesh was one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change although its contribution to the global carbon emission was almost zero.
He said disasters caused by climate change were creating extreme poverty in the country, posing a threat to people’s empowerment and founding of an equitable society.
He said it was also leading to massive migration of rural people to urban areas, posing a challenge to sustainable urbanisation and creating climate refugees within the country.
“Therefore, I would appeal to the whole international community through the Escap for collective action without any delay to save the people and the planet. Otherwise, all of our development efforts would be meaningless.”
About the country’s growing economy, Mannan said over the last decade, the country has gained commendable success in achieving gender parity in education.
Female enrolment rate at the primary school is now 99.4 percent and about 2.7 million girls are receiving stipend at the secondary and higher secondary levels, he added.
With a view to bringing quality healthcare services to the doorsteps of the rural people, the country has set up more than 14,000 community clinics across the country.
The average life expectancy has increased to 72 years while the infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate has dropped significantly, according to the minister.
Monowar Ahmed, secretary to Economic Relations Division, was also a part of the Bangladesh delegation.
