Prime minister’s private sector industry and investment adviser Salman F Rahman on Wednesday highlighted the importance of partnership between the private and public sectors.
"It is one of the most important agendas of our prime minister to have more public-private partnerships for the country's graduation from LDC,” he said.
Salman also said a congregation like FutureNation will not only help recover from the impact of Covid-19, but also make the future generation ready to withstand the fourth and even fifth industrial revolution.
He also stressed the importance of vocational training for the youth to reduce the unemployment rate.
The government, private and development sectors on Wednesday came together for the first time under the "FutureNation" coalition, to accelerate the economic growth of Bangladesh after the Covid-19 pandemic by enabling the youth for a demographic dividend.
A national consultation workshop was organized jointly by Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the former's conference room on Wednesday, to introduce the FutureNation program to different stakeholders.
FutureNation has emerged in the post-Covid-19 world as a collective effort to create decent work and entrepreneurship opportunities for the nation.
The program envisions enabling economic opportunities for everyone in Bangladesh by 2041.
It also aspires to become a leading economic enabler by building an agile ecosystem, connecting industry experts to accelerate economic opportunities through investment development, workforce capability development, and relevant enablement supports.
The program will build the capacity of the youth workforce to contribute to the national economy and develop entrepreneurs.
Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, principal secretary to the PM, attended the closing ceremony as the chief guest.
While addressing the workshop, he said: "Youth constitutes 67% of the labor force. If we want to benefit from it, we must have a skilled youth demographic. FutureNation can play a significant role in building the next generation of our country, especially after Covid-19."
UNDP resident representative Sudipto Mukerjee put emphasis on achieving economic independence beyond borders.
"Half of our young population will enter the labor market over the next two decades and, with their contribution, Bangladesh will sustainably undertake and complete its journey towards being a fully developed nation. Ahead of that, we have our eyes set on 2030 and we are already in the decade of action," Sudipto said.
BIDA Executive Chairman Md Sirazul Islam said there is no alternative to improving investment services and creating a congenial environment for foreign investors for the development of Bangladesh.
“A crucial aspect of giving them the comfort of investing here is to provide them with the confidence that they will get the necessary skills. Therefore, to drive our economy further, creating a skilled workforce is a must. FutureNation is such a program that can serve as the centrepiece of all these modules, and we must work together to make sure that we can thread the pieces together and give rise to a new Bangladesh, a Bangladesh where skill will be our commodity on the global market."
Earlier, acting CEO of Grameenphone Jens Becker presented the keynote paper on FutureNation as a private sector lead in the post-Covid-19 recovery workstream formed in 2020.
He emphasized taking up a holistic approach, involving the government, private, and development sectors.
Among others, representatives from the government, private sector, and development partners were present.
