Australia plans to make larger investments in human development, skills and productivity in Bangladesh in next four years.
“We will continue to move to a smaller number of larger investments. By the end of FY2016-17, the number of investments in the Bangladesh programme will reduce from 17 to 9,” said its Aid Investment Plan on Bangladesh from FY16 to FY19, recently published by its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Australian government has decided to exit from the health sector as well as from climate change and emergency response.
“Australia will make larger investments in fewer areas, where we consider we can have the most impact and where we can value-add,” said the investment plan.
“By focusing on education and economic resilience, including social protection, livelihood and skills programmes, we are responding to Bangladesh’s skills gap with a particular focus on the extreme poor and women.”
Under such investment plan, Australia has two objectives, which are improving education access, equity, efficiency and learning outcomes; and building resilience by reducing vulnerability and improving inclusion in the growing economy.
“In both objectives, we will prioritise gender equality by focusing on empowering women and girls,” the plan stated.
It said supporting primary education would assist Bangladesh to address some of its productivity constraints by improving literacy, numeracy and overall trainability of the future workforce.
Over 43% of the population remain illiterate and the average years of schooling among the labour force is just under five years, which is very low compared with countries that are currently competing with Bangladesh’s garment sector.
The plan said ensuring children, particularly girls, graduate from primary school literate and numerate would help the next generation access better paid and more highly skilled jobs or sustainable self-employment.
Australia will also expand access to education opportunities for Bangladeshis and work with Brac, the largest non-government organisation in Bangladesh, to provide second-chance education.
This will benefit children, predominantly girls from poor families as well as children with a disability, who have dropped out or never enrolled in school, according to the aid investment plan.
Although Bangladesh has achieved lower-middle income status, extreme poverty will only be eradicated if the whole community, including the most disadvantaged, benefit from and contribute to economic growth.
Creating opportunities for the poorest parts of the population to regularise their engagement in the economy would help promote resilience and stability, the plan noted.
It further said social protection programmes could help break the cycle of inter-generational poverty by overcoming the savings and credit constraints that prevent households from investing in the education and health needs of Bangladesh’s youth.
“We will assist extremely poor people, predominantly women, to find pathways out of poverty, building on the lessons and successes of our existing investments.”
“Our livelihoods programmes provide people with cash transfers, productive assets, training and access to free health services.”
Communities in Cox’s Bazar district, which is host to Rohingya refugees and undocumented Myanmar nationals, would also receive increased support for nutrition, food distribution and income generating support under this objective, the plan said.
It said over a third of those living in poverty in Bangladesh were not receiving any social protection assistance at all.
“In addition, social protection assistance improves the poor’s ability to mitigate risk, invest in income generating activities and access the labour market.”
“Jobs for women are important as they can change the way households spend money and invest in the education and health of children.”
Australia will help women, young people and people with a disability find employment through skills training programmes that are consistent with labour market demand.
“Total aid flows to Bangladesh constitute approximately 1.8% of its GDP (and of this Australian aid is roughly 3.3%), meaning Australia’s aid needs to focus in areas where we can make a difference,” the plan stated.
