The New Nation - Internet Edition

bdnews24.com, Dhaka

Finance Adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam has said that millennium development goals (MDG) would not be reached if donor countries fail to keep their ODA pledges.

"Millennium development goals will remain mostly unrealised in many countries unless official development assistance reaches the promised 0.7 percent of donor countries' GDP by 2015," Azizul told the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meeting 2007 in Washington. "MDGs won't be achieved by 2015 unless the developed world disburses its pledged assistance to developing countries," he said in a statement, released Tuesday by Bangladesh Embassy in Washington.

The adviser said aid must be disbursed on a predictable basis.

The finance adviser stressed that aid would be made more effective if a developing country's ownership of development strategies was increased.

According to a WB estimate, the number of people in extreme poverty will fail to decline by half by 2015. It will only decrease by a quarter.

The United Nations MDG target was to halve poverty between 1990 and 2015.

Donor countries promised to assist developing countries to achieve the MDGs by giving them 0.7 percent of their GDP.

But most donors failed to uphold their pledge.

The adviser expressed his concern with the effects of increasing globalisation.

"The most important [concern] relates to the implications of climate change," Azizul said.

He said adapting to climate change should be guided by the objectives of developing countries.

Azizul, a former top bureaucrat, demanded an increase in developing countries' participation in the decision making process of the WB and IMF.

He said: "The work done so far on this issue is far from adequate". The adviser appraised the WB-IMF annual meeting on the development work of the present government.

He said the government was in the process of separating the judiciary from the executive.

He said the government had succeeded in creating an independent Anticorruption Commission and a strong Election Commission.

Some 184 member countries attended the meeting.

DSE ex. chairman dies

Aminul Islam Khan, Managing Director of National Investment and Finance Company Limited and ex. Chairman of Dhaka Stock Exchange Limited breathed his last on Monday night at Mt. Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, says a press release. He was suffering from old age complication. He was 80. He left behind wife, two sons, two daughters and a host of relatives to pine for his death. The dead body was flown to Dhaka on Tuesday for burial while the qulkhwani was held on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, DSE President Md. Abdullah Bokhari and Chief Executive Officer Salahuddin Ahmad Khan has condoled the death of late Aminul Islam and sent message of deep sympathy to the bereaved family.