Dhaka Seeks Greater Climate Collaboration

Bangladesh High Commissioner to the UK Saida Muna Tasneem has said Bangladesh looks forward to creating greater collaboration and connectivity between the Commonwealth and its Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) Presidency.

She mentioned the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, especially in building climate resilience post-COVID strategies for the Commonwealth Climate Vulnerable Countries.

The High Commissioner was given a briefing on Bangladesh's Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group of Finance Ministers Presidency at the Commonwealth Board of Governors extraordinary meeting on post-COVID strategies in London recently.

She also proposed for a CVF-Commonwealth leader's high-level meeting at the upcoming Kigali Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda in June 2021, said the Bangladesh High Commission on Monday.

The High Commissioner said 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, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of GCA to accelerate climate adaptation actions and solutions in South Asia.

Tasneem highlighted some of Bangladesh's CVF Presidency priorities, including reducing climate vulnerability, 1.5 degrees campaign, financing for NDCs, 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.

High Commissioner Tasneem called for vaccine multilateralism and called upon the global vaccine research institutions and manufacturers to provide licensing rights for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines by the countries like Bangladesh that is WTO TRIPS Agreement exempted 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.