Raise aid to help poor nations achieve MDGs

Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam has urged the donor countries to raise official development assistance (ODA) to 0.7 percent of their gross national income by 2015 and disburse on a predictable manner to help poor countries achieve MDGs.
“MDGs will remain mostly unrealised in many countries unless ODA reaches the target of 0.7 percent of GNI of donor countries by 2015 and is disbursed on a predictable basis,” he said, addressing the 2007 Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington on Monday.
The adviser made the call in the backdrop of declined net
official development assistance (ODA) from donor countries by about 5 percent in real terms in 2006 and low level of aid flow predictability.
Moreover, he told the meeting that the evolving aid architecture characterised by proliferation of aid channels, fragmentation of aid flows and increasing earmarking of aid are posing new challenges to aid effectiveness.
Dr Aziz apprised the meeting of the political developments in the country and said the overall economic situation would continue to remain stable in Bangladesh, despite several external and internal shocks.
Dr Aziz further said the present government has stepped up
implementation of much needed structural reforms in almost all sectors to firmly establish an enabling environment for private sector led economic growth.
He reminded all the nations of their mutual responsibility to fulfill the hope they gave to the world's poor and the underprivileged through the Millennium Declaration. “We must sincerely put our acts together to transform that hope into reality,” he said.
“Market access of developing countries to the developed world must also be ensured through successful completion of the Doha Round. Aid cannot be a substitute for fair trade,” he said.