Dhaka March 11 2025:
Investment environment and insiders’ recognition required for developing sustainable business model in Bangladesh.
Labor, finance sources, availability of liquid resources, energy, logistics, regulatory harassment issues have to addressed along with good governance for developing sustainable development in Bangladesh.
Mapping, monitoring and fair reporting have to be ensured to take the benefits of sustainable development while Bangladesh is lagging behind due to lack of awareness, adequate finance and accountability in business enterprises and leaders, remarked Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya.
Analysis of achievements, meeting challenges and follow recommendations by policy makers are the prerequisites of sustainable development, he mentioned.
Besides, entrepreneurs have to ensure accountability for developing sustainable business environment in Bangladesh. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) remains as a tool of tax evasion in the country, so regulatory harassment needs to be eliminated for assuring sustainability in Bangladesh, he emphasized.
Such views were shared in a consultation by Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh titled ‘National SDG Report (VNR) 2025: Perspectives of Business Leaders’ on Tuesday in the city as part of the preparation process for the National Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Report Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) 2025.
The discussion was moderated by Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Core Group Member of Citizen’s Platform and Distinguished Fellow at Centre For Policy Dialogue (CPD).
Md. Fazlul Haque, Former President of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA);Shahamin Zaman, Executive Director of the Global Compact Network Bangladesh; and Asif Ibrahim, Core Group Member of Citizen’s Platform and Vice-Chairman of NewbAge Group of Industries, delivered panel presentations on Responsible Production and Consumption, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Financing to Achieve the SDGs.
Shihab Quader, Director General (SDG Affairs) at the Chief Adviser’s Office, Government of Bangladesh; Anowarul Haq, Assistant Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bangladesh; and Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Convenor of Citizen’s Platform and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) provided special reflections and closing remarks.
While delivering speech, Dr Debapriya pointed out during the fascist regime Voluntary National Report (VNR) was converted in to Voluntary Government Reporting (VGR) while actual situation was offset with intentional, imaginative government reporting.
He said, the idea of sustainability has become more popular and expanded among business, social institutions but the achievements by the private sector remained unrecognized in the national level over the years.
He mentioned, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability were assumed to be same in Bangladesh emphasizing environmental issues while other factors of sustainability like socio economic development and good governance remained ignored and unaddressed.
Moreover, sustainability had not got enough recognition in Bangladesh among the national policy makers, bureaucrats and implementing bodies, he added.
How we can take sustainability beyond export sector across the supply chain, still remains as a challenge. Sustainable business models need to be developed and need of improvements are there in private sector employment scenario of Bangladesh, Dr Debapriya mentioned.
According to him, to develop competitive market environment we need honest entrepreneurs following fair enterprises development to achieve sustainability in Bangladesh. Chamber leaders have to be honest, competitive, accountable, responsible and transparent for ensuring corruption free, competitive business environment development in Bangladesh.
Business insiders, policy makers and government have to work collaboratively for frame work development and include performance evaluation of socio-economic condition across different sectors beyond export sectors of the country.
Dr Deb termed ‘Green Washing’ as a critical issue which incorporate different other not related elements towards sustainability and such promotion. To eliminate green washing we need to ensure transparency and continuous performance evaluation across different sectors.
He suggested for establishing monitoring, moderation, mid term planning, transformation, diversification for achieving sustainable development and LDC graduation for Bangladesh.
The economist had also suggested for effective policy development and adequate alignment of such policies for achieving sustainability. Many policies of Bangladesh are not actionable, useable due to unnecessary bars, unavailability of finance, adequate promotion, contemporary policy and structural adaptation.
He also mentioned that CSR and sustainability are meant same in Bangladesh which are actually different and CSR funds need to be operationalized properly by the business enterprises for assuring sustainability in Bangladesh.
Tax rebates, enterprise benefits, ETP, impact financing have to be linked with CSR activities by the enterprises and policy makers have to be well informed about CSR framework of the country.
Actually, CSR remains as a tool of tax evasion for business enterprises while regulatory harassment has to be eliminated for developing sustainability in Bangladesh, he added.
In future Bangladesh need to integrate policy makers with departments like environment, labor, governance and anti-corruption to develop public private partnership ventures for achieving sustainability in Bangladesh, he mentioned.
While concluding Dr Debapriya highlighted that we need to align all the multi-disciplinary stakeholders like government, institutions, development partners, academia, bureaucrats, politicians, enterprises and people for ensuring socio-economic sustainability in Bangladesh.
The discussion was aimed to explore the role of trade bodies and businesses in driving sustainable development and ensure private sector contributions to the preparation of the (VNR).
Bangladesh is set to prepare its third Voluntary National Review (VNR) in the context of assessing the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) against the backdrop of a new national context.
As part of the government’s VNR preparation process, a series of consultations with diverse stakeholder groups were organised to ensure broader ownership of the SDG delivery in Bangladesh.
Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, the Office of the Principal Coordinator for SDG Affairs at the Chief Adviser’s Office, Government of Bangladesh, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bangladesh jointly organised the consultation with business leaders which included group work to learn about the youth perspectives as regards SDG implementation in Bangladesh and the participation of youth in VNR preparation process.
The inputs received from these consultations are expected to inform and shape the key messages for the VNR.
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