They also said better and diversified investment instruments should be there in place in the country rather than savings certificate so that people are encouraged for savings and investment.

Social Development Foundation (SDF) arranged the seminar titled 'Rural Transformation and Entrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh’ at a city hotel.

Prime Minister’s Economic Affairs Adviser Dr Mashiur Rahman addressed the programme as the chief guest. Additional Secretary of the Finance Ministry Arijit Chowdhury delivered the keynote address.

Senior Secretary of the Finance Ministry's M Ashadul Islam, World Bank's Practice Manger (Agriculture)  Loraine Ronchi, and SDF Managing Director AZM Sakhawat Hossain also spoke at the programme presided over by SDF Chairperson MI Chowdhury.

Speaking at the programme, Mashiur Rahman said the government set up SDF as a homegrown enterprise to address the issue of poverty and resolve the problems of the poor, and later the World Bank and other donors and aid agencies joined it as its supporting hands.

He said the poverty reduction programmes should be worked out with new ideas without duplication. “Avoiding duplication indicates that you know a wide variety of intervention mechanisms. If poverty doesn’t have a widely varied character, most probably your interventions will not be widely diversified.”

The PM’s Adviser said one of the problems the country is badly facing now is a large number of ministries are engaged in more or less the same kind of activities. “They’re doing it as they don’t know about wide variety of intervention mechanisms. When we’ve more efficient and better alternatives, we should switch from the less efficient to more efficient alternatives. Otherwise, we might be spending more money on less-efficient alternatives and get less results.”

He said people should be encouraged for savings and investment. "I think our investment instruments are very inadequate. We should have better and diversified investment instruments rather than saving certificates so that people are encouraged for savings and investment.”

Dr Mashiur also focused on professionalism for delivering better services and help the government steer the country towards rapid progress.  “Much greater professionalism will be required if we want to ensure what the Prime Minister wants to do.”

In his keynote paper, Arijit Chowdhury said as the country’s economy is growing faster, higher labour productivity is essential to diversify the economy as the demand of high-level skill is also growing. “Investment in human capital is required to utilise the benefits of Bangladesh’s demographic dividend.”

He said the SDF successfully implemented many pro-poor projects while it is now in the final year of completing the Nuton Jibon Livelihood Improvement Project (NJLIP).

To ultimately cut rural poverty through promoting rural transformation and the supporting women entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises, SDF is actively pursuing a follow-on project to NJLIP which may be titled 'Rural Transformation and Entrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh’.

“The project is intended to improve the livelihoods of the poor and extreme poor and promote rural enterprises, access to finance and create employment opportunities in selected districts of the country,” he added.

The additional secretary said this is a big initiative of SDF to supplement the government’s efforts for achieving the SDGs to reduce poverty and become a middle-income nation.

Loraine Ronchi said a huge number of people in Bangladesh are still below the poverty line despite the impressive growth of the country.

SDF through its various projects, including the NJLIP, has been playing a very important role in reducing poverty, she observed.

“In my first visit to Bangladesh, I was so impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of the people, which I saw everywhere. With small grants, individuals and communities investing and reinvesting in their ideas, able to spot opportunities and simply needing support to define them and act on them,” Ronchi added.

SDF Chairperson MI Chowdhury said their organisation has been playing a tremendous role in developing the socio-economic condition of the country’s disadvantaged people and women.

He said though Bangladesh achieved huge success in reducing poverty over the last one decade, the country still could not get rid of the curse of poverty as 24 million people are living below the poverty line.

Narrating SDF’s various initiatives in alleviating poverty, MI Chowdhury said their organisation will also perform the duties to be given by the government in the days to come and thus help build ‘Sonar Bangla’ as dreamt by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.