Vision 2021 Forum : Advocating Towards making Vision 2021 a reality

What’s the existing situation? HFW has written a policy response paper to the Government’s Outline Perspective Plan (the proposed guidelines for making Vision 2021 a reality) The policy environment for making Vision 2021 a reality is changing – this presents an opportunity to develop a strong, clear message for what the Vision 2021 Forum wants done

Summary of the Outline Perspective Plan Making Bangladesh a middle-income and a high HDI country by 2021, the Golden Jubilee Year of national independence Becoming a resilient democratic nation Democratic culture Right to information and free media Independence of judiciary Gender balanced society Food and energy secured country Knowledge based society Strengthening ICT for a ‘digital Bangladesh’ Protecting the environment and meeting climate change challenges

Key Focus Areas of the Outline Perspective Plan Economic growth Corruption-free good governance Population management Public health & nutrition Education Science & technology Agriculture & rural development Water management Energy security Public infrastructure ICT Environmentally sustainable development

Objectives of the perspective plan • Elimination of illiteracy as soon as possible after 2014. • Attainment of 100 percent enrolment with gender parity and specific steps in addressing the dropout problem, particularly of the girl children. • Expansion and diversification of the industrial sector for enlarging the share of the secondary/industrial sector to 35 per cent of GDP and for employment generation. • Reduction of unemployment rate to 15 percent. • Decrease in the number of people below poverty line to 25 million i.e. to 15 percent. • Ensure per capita energy consumption rising to 600kwh. • Raising per capita income to US $ 2000 • Strengthening information technology towards a digital Bangladesh. • Preservation, conservation, and restoration of all the historical monument/mass graves of martyred war veterans. • Protection and enhancement of the environment, effectively meeting the challenges arising from intensifying climate change and addressing other environmental degradation issues.

What do you think? What’s your response to the Government’s Perspective Plan? How do you think the Vision 2021 Forum could respond? Would you like to receive training to create an updated advocacy strategy for Vision 2021 Forum?

Analysis The Perspective Plan is still in the early stages of implementation – currently in the second year of the Sixth Five Year Plan Consistency and commitment to pursuing the vision outlined in the Plan are fundamental to its success. The open-ended nature of the Perspective Plan is both a strength and weakness. On the one hand, it leaves scope for change and adaptation; on the other hand the lack of a detailed implementation plan leaves the policy at risk of being neglected.

Background of the vision 2021 advocacy The Vision 2021 Forum helped to lobby for Vision 2021’s adoption in 2008, but in order to remain relevant, the Forum must adapt to the current political situation with a new message and focus.

Proposed Recommendations In order to protect the Plan against an unstable political environment: We recommend that the Government creates a permanent commission to oversee the Plan. In the case that the initiating Government is not re-elected, this would ensure that the Plan continues to hold traction.

Proposed Recommendations In order to increase the transparency of the process of implementation, thus enhancing the likelihood of achieving the objectives set by the Plan: We recommend that the Planning Commission makes its practices towards achieving Vision 2021 more transparent so that all Bangladeshis can see how close or far the people are from reaching middle income status. This transparency could be achieved through e-governance technologies and would also work towards increased accountability.

Proposed Recommendations In order to increase the chances of meeting the Plan’s objectives and maximizing accountability across the political spectrum: We recommend that each Union Council must have a perspective plan, a plan towards year 2021 and shared that with the government to support. Effort must also be made on implementing the vision on their own, using local resources available.

What’s our response? Quick notes to memorize: We discussed recommendations such as: Creating a permanent commission to oversee the Vision 2021 Policy Ensuring that each Union Council or local government has their own perspective plan towards year 2021 based on national `vision 2021’. Increasing transparency of the plan’s progress using the Digital Bangladesh platform

Issue we need to discuss What are our criticisms on government’s document? Is the budget appropriate for achieving vision 2021 perspective plan Currently reality of the country against the objective stated in the document? What do we want to say / demand?