At a press conference held in Dhaka on Monday, civil society organisations called for urgent global action to repatriate laundered money and ensure financial justice, especially as Bangladesh faces multiple development challenges.
The event was organised ahead of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), scheduled to take place in Sevilla, Spain, from June 30 to July 4, 2025.
The press conference, titled "Beyond Aid: Reclaim Bangladesh's Laundered Wealth for Achieving SDGs," was jointly hosted by COAST Foundation, EquityBD, BCJF, NDF, Sundarbans o Upakul Suraksha Andolon, UDAYAN, and Waterkeepers Bangladesh.
Iqbal Uddin of COAST Foundation delivered the keynote address, while Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Chief Moderator of EquityBD, moderated the session.
Speakers highlighted alarming statistics underscoring Bangladesh's socio-economic vulnerabilities: the country ranks as the 7th most climate-vulnerable nation, with 56 per cent of its population living in high-risk areas. Child labour affects 1.78 million children, the national poverty rate has climbed to 18.7 per cent, and child marriage persists at an alarming 51.4 per cent.
As Bangladesh prepares to graduate from Least Developed Country (LDC) status by 2026, the FFD4 conference stands as a critical platform to address global financial architecture-including domestic resource mobilisation, climate finance, debt policy, and illicit financial flows.
Speakers voiced strong concerns over declining Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), unjust global tax systems, rising debt burdens, and the enormous scale of illicit financial outflows. In the past 15 years, over USD 100 billion has reportedly been laundered out of Bangladesh-an amount nearly equal to the nation's two-year budget and sufficient to cover almost its entire foreign debt.
They demanded the urgent repatriation of these stolen assets to support sustainable development and ease fiscal pressures.
Iqbal Uddin stressed that FFD4 must deliver robust global mechanisms to halt illicit financial flows and ensure the return of stolen assets to countries like Bangladesh.
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury noted that countries such as the UK, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium are scaling back their ODA contributions. "Beyond aid, rich nations must stop enabling illicit financing and must return stolen assets to help countries like Bangladesh achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," he said.
