An Asia for Everyone conference held

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Planning Prof Dr Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir on Friday said Bangladesh’s experience with overseas employment, export-oriented garment manufacturing and emerging social protection initiatives offers examples of how public policy can connect household welfare with productive economic activities.

Addressing Session III on “Financing Equality: Resource Mobilisation for Public Services” at a high-level regional conference at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, Titumir stressed the need to replace fragmented social safety-net programmes with a comprehensive social security system linked to productive investment, formal employment generation and an expanded tax base.

The conference, titled “An Asia for Everyone: Public Services, Social Protection and the Promise of Shared Prosperity,” brought together policymakers, economists, researchers and development practitioners to discuss the region’s growing inequality and the role of public services and social protection in promoting shared prosperity, said a press release here.

Organised by the Faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University and Oxfam in Asia, the conference was held ahead of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings in Bangkok.

In his address, Titumir highlighted the economic and social challenges facing Bangladesh, saying the country needed to strengthen social protection and improve the delivery of public services to ensure that economic growth translated into better living standards for all.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic and weaknesses in the previous system of social protection had compounded economic hardship, with an estimated 7 million to 10 million additional people pushed into poverty, according to the figures cited in his presentation.

He also criticised the fragmentation of traditional social safety-net programmes, pointing to inclusion and exclusion errors that prevent assistance from reaching many people who need it while allowing ineligible beneficiaries to receive support.

Titumir outlined a shift towards a lifecycle-based social security system designed to provide more comprehensive support
to people at different stages of life.�" BSS