The British Bangladeshi Professional’s Association ( BBPA ) welcomes the Government White Paper on Eliminating World Poverty; making Globalisation work for the Poor, providing a useful contribution to some of the great debates presently facing the planet. We take an unashamedly pro-Bangladesh stance on many of the issues within the Paper which makes our contribution distinct from others such as the predominately International Development NGO’s and Academic responses. We see this as the best way to assist our ancestral homeland, as an emerging democracy struggling with raising its peoples from absolute and abject poverty. Furthermore we also feel we have particular responsibilities, as representatives of the largest Bangladeshi community outside of Bangladesh, in the developed world.

We emphasise upon our four policy responses to the paper and also aim not to duplicate what others are saying. For example, the War on Want (W 0 W) push for the Tobin Tax on speculative international flows of capital, is one which they most eloquently make and thus we do not see any need for us to re-state the arguments for the cause. We are also confining ourselves to those areas to which we have some expertise amongst your key policy commitments within the paper, which are;

Debt Relief for poverty reduction
Global Environmental problems
Capturing gains from Trade

And another addition, the freedom of movement of people & environmental refugees.

Below we go through our arguments in some detail for each key area with respect to Bangladesh.

Debt reduction for emerging democracies

Thankfully Bangladesh is not the complete basket case that Henry Kissinger suggested at the birth of the nation in 1971. It is not amongst the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) as identified in the debt relief initiative. Like the other countries in South Asia, Bangladesh still has acute poverty and has been reliably servicing it’s debt, and herein we have a moral dilemma, do those poor countries who have reliably serviced their debt be excluded from this initiative though they still struggle with providing basic services to their citizens like the HIPC?

In Bangladesh it is estimated that £600 million is used to service the debt annually and this is equivalent to the whole annual primary investment in education and health. Most of this debt was taken out by military regimes when they were in power and it is quite ironic that civilian governments are having to service the financial burden of their pet projects now and into the foreseeable future. If we are to assist the spread of democracy and human rights, what better way then extending debt relief to those emerging democracies like Bangladesh and their civilian governments struggling to provide basic services like education and health to their citizens. At a stroke it would allow the civilian government to double their efforts in education and health provision.

Global environmental leadership from the UK

We would welcome the continued UK governments global environmental leadership, in particular over the final negotiations of the UN climate change convention in reducing the contribution of the developed world to global environmental degradation. The impact that is already evident is rising sea-levels through global warming. Large swathes of humanity, whether in cities like New York or Bombay or in low-lying countries such as the Maldives and Bangladesh, are vulnerable to even a tiny rise in the world’s oceans. What makes it particularly unjust is that Bangladesh has contributed virtually nothing to the atmosphere’s stock of GHG’s, and yet it will be affected far more than major polluters such as the United States.

In light of the present stance of the US government in opposing the Kyoto Protocol and challenging the science of climate change, it gives the UK government more responsibility to provide global environmental

leadership, which it has already provided through Mr Prescott in earlier rounds of negotiations, particularly between the EU and the USA. While the 5 per cent target below 1990 levels of GHG emissions to be reached by 2008-12 is considered by experts too little, getting the Protocol ratified along with the "flexibility mechanisms" like emissions trading by all the developed world will be a major challenge. If nothing else, many of us in the Bangladeshi community would like to continue to be able to visit our relatives in our ancestral home during the rest of our life-time.

We also welcome policy commitments to strengthen the developing world’s capacity to participate in international negotiations and hope you would consider extending this to also using nationals and descendants of those countries based in the UK. For example, using British Bangladeshi’s with relevant background and talents in assisting in better representation of the developing world. This would be a good case of using the human capital available from the wider Bangladeshi diaspora, particularly those in the UK.

Trade and honouring our commitments along with the rest of the Developed World

It is welcomed that trade policy is part of International Development lexicon and we hope this a sign that the emphasis will change to trade not aid. The gains of trade are clear for all to see in Dhaka over the past decade with over 1.5 million women employed in the garments industry. The most liberating force for Bengali women in the cities, we dare say, has not been the liberation of the country nor the hand-outs and assistance from NGO’s but getting regular employment from such industries. This said it should not be forgotten that many women still combined this work with their household work and hand over a large proportion of their wages to their husband.

Thus we support the continued reduction of barriers of trade but we find that developed countries preach the virtue of openness but the practise lags behind the rhetoric. For example developed countries must end the large subsidies to their farmers, which currently distorts world prices and alters private investment in agriculture in poor countries. A case in point is CAP and fishery policy of the EU, which ultimately results in consumers in Europe paying a lot more for their foodstuffs than is necessary.

Furthermore, developed countries maintain significant tariff and non-tariff barriers against the exports of the developing world. For example in textiles and clothing we not only have quota protection to the developing world stopping the level of exports coming from individual countries but also industrial tariffs and duty stopping more of the manufacturing occurring in Bangladesh. Therefore the quota protection must be eliminated by 2005 as agreed and not extended again. We also welcome the calls lead by the UK for a duty free regime and the next round of trade negotiation where it is the intention of the UK and EU partners to acknowledge the different stages of development in the developing world, in trade negotiation.

It should not also be forgotten that Bengal had a comparative advantage in the textiles and clothing industry before the British Raj came and one of the first things done by the Raj was to quite literately smash this industry and exclude it from the UK markets. A case of retarded development for both present day Bangladesh and West Bengal and hence why we have a particular responsibility to this part of the world in trade matters.

Freedom of movement for labour and new UN Convention for Environmental refugees

In all the discussions of globalisation we talk about the free movement of goods, capital and ideas but not the free movement of people. Indeed moving with your feet has been one of the major responses of human kind to poverty and hunger. We have been doing so for several thousand years, indeed since we arose as a species. Also as descendants of economic migrants, we should not deny others the same opportunities like the Irish and Italians before us. Furthermore, in recent times such migrants have made an important contribution to their countries of origin by sending back over $ 100 billion worth of remittances to their family and friends, which is not to dissimilar to the flows of aid annually going to the developing world from the developed.

Whilst the latter is beyond the remit of DFID, it needs to be considered in International Development circles and governments in the developed world, particularly those likely to have problems with an ageing population and an in sufficient number of young people to support the state pension system.

As discussed earlier, environmental degradation also leaves the poor more vulnerable to natural disasters. The Red Cross Report of 1998, estimated for the first time that the number of refugees from natural disasters exceeded those displaced as a result of war. Such environmental refugees should be acknowledged and be assisted by a similar 1951 Geneva Convention for political refugees, in their host countries. Such a safety net is the least we in the developed world should offer, as an acknowledgement of our contribution to the global environmental problems and pushing particular models of development.

In short, we have endorsed three of your key policy commitments which we feel are particularly important for Bangladesh to evolve as a nation state. Where needed, we have argued for its extension like with debt relief to emerging democracies. In other instances we have re-emphasised policy commitments in light of recent policy positions taken by the US government with regards to global environmental problems like global warming and have emphasised the importance of getting trade policy right for the developing world. Finally the incorporation of further migration into the developed world from the developing world as another response to eliminating poverty under globalisation and consideration of a new Geneva Convention to cover the increasing numbers of environmental refugees.

Finally we would welcome the opportunity to be called up by the International Development Select Committee for evidence.

Yours sincerely,

Hasneen Choudhury

Chair of BBPA