Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared Bangladesh’s ambition of graduating from being a Least Developed Country (LDC) within a few years. This is no doubt, a laudable aim and should be achievable through the right policies to raise the growth rate and reduce the poverty levels through investment in industries, infrastructure and education. However, there is one aspect of under-development …

Bangladesh has just hosted a big international conference on migration as the co-chair, with Germany, of the Global Forum on Migration and Development. While the focus of the Conference was mostly on the current problems related to international migration there was some discussion of the possible impacts of climate change on migration in the future. There was also the launching …

In 2015, the world made two major global agreements, first in September in New York on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and then on climate change under the Paris Agreement in December . Both these global agreements have the same fifteen year timeline for their implementation, i.e. by 2030. However, in each developing country there are two very distinct and …

During the first half of the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Marrakech, Morocco, in November, the result of the US presidential elections fell on us like a bombshell, first because it was so unexpected, and more so because of Mr. Trump’s previous statements questioning the existence of human induced …

The 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Marrakech, Morocco, came to an end on November 18 with the adoption of the Marrakech Call for Action to implement the Paris Agreement which was adopted at COP21 a year ago and came into force in Marrakech. This marks a very significant …

Prime Minister Hasina is now in Marrakech, Morocco, for the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She was invited, along with other heads of government and ministers, by the King of Morocco to attend the opening of the first meeting of Parties to the Paris Agreement here on November 15. In …

The morning of last Monday in Marrakech, Laurent Fabius, the Environment Minister of France, who was president of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) since last December, handed over the presidency to Hakima El Haite, the Environment Minister of Morocco. She has now taken over as President of COP22 here in Marrakech. This …

Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) is distinct from many other private universities for several reasons. It follows the liberal arts education model. The main focus of the liberal art education is that in addition to specialised disciplines, students must be educated in other broader fields. Students of one discipline must know something about other disciplines that are related to life. When …

I have just been to Geneva, Switzerland where I was invited to speak at the General Assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the role of parliamentarians in tackling climate change. The IPU is the oldest and biggest union of parliamentarians from all the world’s parliaments and its current President is Bangladeshi parliamentarian Saber Hossain Choudhury. There are four …

I am writing this from Colombo, Sri Lanka where I have been attending the Fifth Asia Pacific Adaptation forum here with over 800 participants from over fifty countries in Asia and the Pacific, including senior officials from governments, academics and researchers, civil society, media and UN agencies and development founders, private sector, and students and children came together over three …