Investment News

UNDP-BIDA Partnership for FutureNation Program

Apr 10, 2022

Dhaka, 10 April 2022 - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) have partnered and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the FutureNation program to create economic opportunities for all.

FutureNation is a new coalition of the Government, Private and Development sectors to accelerate the future national economic growth agenda by transforming the country’s population dividend into the key driving force of the economy and enabling them to achieve economic independence beyond borders.

Sudipto Mukerjee, Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh and Md. Ziaul Huq, Director General, BIDA, inked the partnership on behalf of their respective organizations in the ceremony held at BIDA’s Head Office in Agargaon.

Salman Fazlur Rahman MP, Private Sector Industry and Investment Adviser to the PM highlighted the importance of the partnership between private, public and development sectors at the MoU signing program as the Chief Guest.

"One of the key agenda of our Prime Minister is to have more and more public and private partnership for country's graduation from LDC,” Salman Fazlur Rahman said. “Alliances like FutureNation, will not only help us to recover from the COVID but also make the future generation ready to withstand the 4th Industrial Revolution and even the 5th Industrial Revolution," he added.

BIDA Executive Chairman, Md Sirazul Islam said, "BIDA holds a significant stake in the goals to be achieved by FutureNation, which is focused on the urgent utilization of our young population dividend, the emergence of new work, our industrial future and our goal to become a knowledge economy. BIDA will therefore strongly support this initiative, which will contribute to the emergence of a new Bangladesh, where skills will be one of our commodities in the global market.”

Sudipto Mukerjee said ‘I am very happy today as the private sector, government and development partners in Bangladesh are coming together with a common goal – to face the post-pandemic frontier challenges, especially generating economic opportunities for the youth who need it the most. As we celebrate this milestone, I believe that collectively we have the resources needed to do ‘so’.

Yasir Azman, Grameenphone CEO said, "It is a great possibility to convert the young population dividend into skilled human resources who can be the biggest contributors to take the journey of Bangladesh to become a developed nation. We are very happy to have this opportunity to lead from private sector and contribute to the young people to bring out their immense potential. Through UNDP we will take this work forward with the guidance of BIDA.”

BIDA and UNDP will be working together on Private Sector Platform for post-COVID recovery programs and activities and create economic opportunities for youth through the FutureNation initiative. Senior officials from BIDA, UNDP and GP were present at the signing ceremony.