Dhaka has called for greater collaboration between the Climate Vulnerable Forum, led by Bangladesh, and the Commonwealth in addressing challenges posed by climate change.
Bangladesh placed great emphasis on formulating post-Covid-19 strategies for vulnerable countries belonging to the Commonwealth, an organization of 54 countries previously ruled by the United Kingdom.
“Bangladesh looks forward to creating greater collaboration and connectivity between the Commonwealth and its Climate Vulnerable Forum Presidency under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, specially in building climate resilience post-Covid strategies for the Commonwealth Climate Vulnerable Countries,” said Bangladesh high commissioner to the UK Saida Muna Tasneem.
She was briefing the Commonwealth board of governors’ extra-ordinary meeting on post-Covid strategies in London on Friday (September 11) on the Bangladesh's presidency of CVF and the Vulnerable Twenty (V20), group of finance ministers of CVF, Bangladesh high commission in London said on Monday.
Tasneem also proposed for a high-level meeting between CVF and Commonwealth leaders at the upcoming Kigali Commonwealth heads of government meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda scheduled to be held in June, 2021.
“Bangladesh also takes pride in hosting the South Asian regional office of Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) in Dhaka jointly inaugurated on September 8 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Ban Ki-moon, the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations and Chair of GCA to accelerate climate adaptation actions and solutions in South Asia,” she said.
Tasneem highlighted some of the priorities of the CVF under the presidency of Bangladesh that include climate vulnerability, 1.5 degrees campaign, financing, scale-up loss and damage efforts, and linkages between climate change, human rights, and displacement.
She also informed the 54 member Commonwealth board of governors that in post-Covid times, Bangladesh would continue to play a leadership role as the Commonwealth's business-to-business connectivity cluster lead, to specially promote digital marketplaces and creation of a Commonwealth B-2-B connectivity hub to promote intra-Commonwealth trade for all products, particularly in PPEs, antiviral medicines, therapeutics and medical equipment manufactured in Bangladesh and other Commonwealth countries.
The envoy called for vaccine multilateralism and called upon global vaccine research institutions and manufacturers to provide licensing rights for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines to countries like Bangladesh that is exempted from WTO TRIPS Agreement in the pharmaceuticals sector.
Bangladesh was highly praised by the Commonwealth secretary general and many Commonwealth high commissioners for its manufacturing successes in PPE and antiviral drugs in the post-Covid global market.