A webinar titled “Development of young population: perspective FY2020-21 budget implementation”, jointly organized by South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) and ActionAid Bangladesh, took place on June 27, 2020 at 11.00 AM. The Chief Guest of the webinar was Mr. Nahim Razzaq, Member of Parliament, Shariatpur 3 Constituency, and Convener, Young Bangla – National Youth Platform and the Special Guest was Dr. Atiur Rahman, Professor, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka. Chaired by Ms. Farah Kabir, Country Director, ActionAid Bangladesh and moderated by Dr. Sayema Haque Bidisha, Research Director, SANEM and Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, the webinar hosted a panel discussion which was attended by Mr. Mahtab Uddin, Research Fellow, SANEM, and Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Mr. Nazmul Ahsan, Manager-Young People, ActionAid Bangladesh and Mr. Hussain M Elius, CEO and Co-founder, Pathao. Around 50 participants including professionals, development practitioners, researchers, journalists, and students joined the webinar through the video conferencing app ZOOM. The webinar was streamed live on the Facebook page of SANEM.

Professor Dr. Sayema Haque Bidisha inaugurated the session by warmly greeting everyone for their participation. She pointed out that The Covid-19 pandemic has left economies across the world in complete turmoil. Developed nations have seen rise in unemployment, and essentially every sector in every country is facing shocks, leading to a significant loss of jobs. Bangladesh has not been spared, and it is cause for great concern. However, Bangladesh has always been known for its resilience and defying the odds. Now, as we navigate through a global pandemic, this resilience is needed more than ever. The government has already made provisions for the youth in the budget for the next fiscal year, allocating Tk64,000 crore. However, this number is meaningless unless we have the right strategies in place, and use this portion of the budget to build our youth, essentially from the ground up, and equip them with the tools, skills, and resources they require to take the country forward. Serious reform is needed in the education and vocational system to turn youths into entrepreneurs. Without such steps, we will not be able to take advantage of the demographic dividend, she commented. Covid-19 has brought about a new world order which should be accepted to survive the changing situations and It will be difficult to recover the country’s economy even in the next six months, said Farah Kabir. She urged the government to incorporate sufficient initiatives in the budget to address the needs of the youth, at least for a short period. She said that the youth are in uncertainty due to Covid-19 as they are frustrated over their future and we have to utilize the talent and innovation of the youth. We need a ‘Youth Council’ to tackle the situation. The education system must be reformed. Alongside with institutional reform, the curriculum must be changed accordingly, she proposed.

Eshrat Sharmin, Research Associate at the SANEM started the keynote presentation pointing out the fact that the poverty rate increased to 44 per cent as a result of the Covid-19. This poverty rate will impact the youths, especially the students as there may be a surge in dropout rates. 20 million young workers in various sectors across the country hanging in balance amid the Covid-19 pandemic, who are currently at risk of permanent wage moderations or no income. Even those yet to leave their academic careers behind have much to be concerned about, as 53 percent of the employed youth population in Bangladesh will fall below the poverty line due to income shocks caused by the novel coronavirus. According to the study, assuming a 25 percent income shock due to the pandemic, 48 percent of the youth population will fall below the poverty line. Besides, 89 percent of employed youths engaged in the informal sector are facing the highest risk of job loss. Young workers will also become permanently unemployed or underemployed due to factory closures and reduced production. Youths working in the ICT sector (such as freelancing jobs) are expected to experience long-term income losses, while young workers involved with SMEs (agriculture, handicrafts, light engineering industry) will be hit the hardest by the pandemic shock. Under these circumstances, it is imperative to ensure training, ease the process of getting loans, and increase budget allocation to help create more entrepreneurs. The paper also said, about 37 million students are affected due to national wide closure of educational institutes since March 17. Very few institutions and students have access to distance learning tools, disrupting education for the students. As a result, the lower literacy rates and higher dropout rates will increase. The paper recommended important policy implications such as Annual Development Project (ADP) and budgetary allocation to be youth centric for dealing with the youth needs and The implementation method of the various loan facilities to be concrete, transparent and flexible to access illiterate, untrained or extreme poor for effective https://dietitianlavleen.com/get-rid-of-accutane/ implication. Conclusively, the importance of good governance that means inter- ministry co-ordination is crucial in order to grab the demographic dividend.

Mahtab Uddin said if there is 1.0 per cent dropout in educational institutions, that will be around 400,000. There is no short-term impact of closure on educational institutions, but those fell under the poverty and dropped out, it will have long-term consequences. The hardest hit sectors amid the Covid-19 pandemic are education and employment. In the budget for the fiscal year 2019-20, the government had allocated Tk100 crore for job creation, but this is missing in the proposed budget for this year. He thinks credit flow in the SME sector should be increased further. The government should have given emphasis on youth entrepreneurship in the budget. The allocation Bangladesh made for the health sector is the lowest among least developed countries, he said. Nazmul Ahsan pointed out that the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 allocated only 0.05 percent to cover 50 million young people in Bangladesh. The budget should have focused on human resource development instead of business for inclusive growth. If we can’t create domestic demand, the economy will not rebound. Vocational and technical education is not market oriented and the curriculum needs to be made up-to-date, he emphasized. Hussain M Elius proposed that the government should allow ride-sharing in cities, considering its growth and job losses of around 300,000 drivers. The investment in start-ups in Bangladesh is low compared with its peer economies. He said over the last five years, investment in start-ups is around US$200 million. He demanded policy support from the government for companies like his. At least four lakh drivers are involved with ridesharing companies and their employment and livelihood depended on ridesharing, he stated. Dr. Selim Raihan suggested considering employment generation initiatives in the budget focusing on the young population. The government increased allocation for the health sector in the budget and there is scope to raise the budget for the health service system further, he said. A long-term plan should be undertaken to reap demographic dividend. Opportunities provided by the demographic dividend are nearing an end, but we are still not utilizing them fully. Utilizing the youth population in sectors other than readymade garments and remittance is much needed now, he added. The Chief Guest Nahim Razzaq said that the government allocated Tk64,000 crore for youths in the proposed budget for FY21. Now we should emphasize on its implementation and also capacity building. In the budget, the government also raised the allocation in healthcare and education, he added. Bangladesh should explore how to diversify its export earnings along with the reduction in the excessive reliance on readymade garment. The absence of an accurate database is the main barrier towards undertaking any initiative for youths in Bangladesh which could have led to the subsequent reaping of the expected demographic dividend, said the parliament member, Nahim Razzaq adding that institutional restructuring was also required for ensuring need-based education. He also put emphasis on budgetary allocation for young entrepreneurs so that they could deal with the impacts of Covid-19. The language barrier is also one of the major problems for youth and a lack of this communications skill was rendering them incapable of competing with others, he further said. The government is moving forward with a strategy geared to boosting youth development by increasing institutional capacity, he assured. If a ‘Youth Development Council’ is formed, it would be easier for the 22 ministries concerned to supervise the process. The Special Guest Dr Atiur Rahman said that there should be infrastructure reforms in the health sector to address Covid-19. This is not right time for resuming ride-sharing services as the worst-affected areas are Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram and ride-sharing vehicles ply mainly in these districts, he said while reacting to a proposal for the resumption of ride-hailing apps. However, there are opportunities for the young to become health sector entrepreneurs by producing masks and other products to fight the pandemic. This kind of smart investments may be encouraged for the welfare of the people. He continued, “BRAC, a non-government development organization, has involved lakhs of youths in the healthcare sector amid the pandemic. So, there is an opportunity to employ youths in the 14,000 community clinics across the country. Regarding a budgetary allocation for small and medium enterprises, he said the small and micro entrepreneurs have no access to formal finance so the central bank could take up an initiative to protect them. New schemes must be introduced to ease the process of granting loans to small entrepreneurs. Regarding implementation of the budget for youth, he said the ministry of youth and sports could create a monitoring cell to oversee it. These expatriates must be trained and then attached to the Karmasangsthan Bank or any other banks to get support and training.  Training should be provided to youths seeking to become entrepreneurs in the future. He added that alongside the incentive package, the government has allocated Tk2,000 crore more to create entrepreneurs from among youths who returned from abroad amid the pandemic.

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