”Under the prudent and visionary leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh is delivering public health services and humanitarian emergency aide to our people’s door step, utilizing ‘GovTech’ and ‘DevTech’ under her ‘Digital Bangladesh’ vision”, said Bangladesh High Commissioner Saida Muna Tasneem at the virtual Commonwealth Leaders meeting on the COVID-19 crisis earlier this week.
Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of 30Commonwealth member countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Belize, Bahamas, Uganda, Tanzania, Guyana, and the Gambia attended the meeting.
High Commissioner Tasneem was speaking at the virtual Commonwealth Leaders meeting as a representative of Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She briefed the Commonwealth leaders about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s post-covid innovative digitalization initiatives in public services including 333-digital helpline for emergency health support, Muktopaath (an internationally award-winning open e-Learning program) for training doctors, Food for Nation App to ensure emergency supply chains, EkShopApp (e-commerce platform) for connecting farmers withconsumers, ‘2-minute’ online bank account from home,digital wallets for payments of wages, Bangladesh Post Office Digital Financial transaction “Nagad” and various other digital services during Covid-19emergency.
Echoing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 6 priorities of global action to combat Covid-19 at the World Economic Forum’s Covid Response Dialogue, High Commissioner Tasneem called upon the Commonwealth leaders to become the collective and common voice of the most vulnerable countries including the LDCs, LLDCs, SIDS and countries with special needs during the post-Covid global socio-economic recovery initiatives, and called for assurances that LDCs meeting the graduation thresholds would continue to receive all flexibilities including sustained GSP facilities.
In the meeting, Commonwealth leaders appreciated Bangladesh Prime Minister’s $11.50 billion financial and social safety–net support packages for the most vulnerable segments of the society including the RMG and daily workers and her ‘GovTech’ and ‘DevTech’ initiatives. The Commonwealth Secretary-General acknowledged Bangladesh’s early warning system and disaster preparedness including quick evacuation of 2.5 million people from the coastal area during Cyclone Amphan.
