CPD distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattachary speaks while executive director Mustafizur Rahman looks on at a press briefing at the CPD office in the capital on Wednesday. — New Age photo

The Centre for Policy Dialogue on Wednesday termed the quality job creation and removal of income inequality as most important issues for the least developed countries and emphasised on including those in the next Millennium Development Goals as United Nations development agenda.
At a news briefing on expert meeting of Southern Voice on Post-MDGs to be held in Dhaka in January 11-13, the CPD said that though Bangladesh had gained significant achievement in implementing most of the globally agreed goals and targets under current MDGs, it could not create enough quality employment and reduce income disparity.
‘Among the agreed eight goals, the country has made progress in attaining five goals including reducing the level of poverty, ensuring universal primary education and reducing child mortality,’ CPD distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya said at the briefing held at its office in the capital.
But progress in reducing malnutrition, maternal mortality and hunger remains slow, he said.
Compared with other countries in Africa, however, Bangladesh has made progress enough well in achieving the overall targets, he said.
He said that CPD was going to organise the meeting to discuss on achievement, unfinished agendas of the ongoing MDGs and new agendas and goals for next MDGs.
Nineteen experts from Asia, Latin America and Africa will attend the meeting.
Think Tank Initiative, a coalition of 49 think tank organisations from Asia, Africa and Latin America, has taken the Southern Voice on Post-MDGs and CPD is leading the initiative.
The MDGs were set in the year 2000 by the UN member states to achieve eight main goals including poverty alleviation, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health by 2015.
Debapriya said that as the ongoing MDGs approached the deadline of 2015, the international development community was focusing on the experiences gathers so far regarding the implementation of MDGs and generating agendas, issues and targets for post-MDGs period.
In this context, Southern Voice on Post-MDGs has started generating agenda for post-MDGs from the perspective of developing countries.
The three-day expert group meeting will discuss different areas such as framework, issues and challenges of post-MDGs, the unfinished agendas of MDGs, issues for the future, prospect of global partnership and resource mobilisation for post-MDGs, he said.
Among others, CPD executive director Mustafizur Rahman, spoke at the briefing.