Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday called upon all, including the Rotarians, to supplement the government efforts to establish a poverty and hunger-free prosperous Bangladesh for the next generation.
The Prime Minister made the call while addressing a function organised marking the Platinum Jubilee of Rotary International District 3280, Bangladesh and conferring upon her the prestigious Rotary Peace Award 2013 at a city hotel.
Rotary International District 3280, Bangladesh has conferred the Rotary Peace Award 2013 upon Sheikh Hasina in recognition of her endeavour to promote peace among communities and across the globe.
Sheikh Hasina said her government has consolidated democracy, attached priority to maintaining communal harmony and brought the war criminals to justice to establish peace in society.
She said conferring of the Rotary Peace Award upon her will give a boost to peace building initiatives of the present government.
Terming the award an honor to the people of the country, Hasina said the recognition of the Rotary International for the peace efforts of the government will inspire her to establish and maintain peace at home and abroad.
Hasina said the politics of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was to realise he socioeconomic and political rights of the common people.
After Bangladesh’s independence, she said Bangabandhu spread his ideals of ‘friendship towards all, malice towards none’ and peaceful coexistence of all worldwide to establish a lasting peace in the world.
For his great role in establishing peace across the world, the world Peace Council awarded him Juliot-Curie Peace Prize in 1973, Hasina mentioned.
Following the footsteps of the Father of the Nation, Hasina said she has also been making relentless efforts to establish global peace and pursue the leaders and workers of the party to follow a peaceful path for restoring the rights of people.
The Prime Minister said the world is now getting engaged with sustainable development, and she strongly believes that sustainable development could be achieved only through ensuring global peace.
In this context, she mentioned the presentation of her peace model titled ‘People’s Empowerment and Development’ in the UN General Assembly in 2011 to achieve global peace. The 193 member states of the UN passed the proposal in December last.
Hasina said in the model she identified eradication of poverty and hunger, reduction of inequality, mitigation of deprivation, inclusion of excluded people, acceleration of human development and elimination of terrorism as the six mutually reinforcing peace multipliers to achieve world peace.
The Prime Minister said at home her government has given top priority to poverty alleviation and ensured overall development of villages making every village as the focal point of the development.
She mentioned that the country has achieved the steady growth of GDP amid the global economic meltdown, healthy growth in the export earnings, maintaining of remittance inflow and foreign currency reserve.
Sheikh Hasina said as a result of the implementation of various pragmatic steps taken by her government the poverty has reduced sharply and per capita income and the purchasing power of people marked a rise substantially. Besides, she said, healthcare services reached the doorsteps of the common people through community clinics while ICT service services through Union Information and Service Centers.
Besides, she said her government has implemented huge development work to improve education sector and expedite human resources development, ensured tremendous development in the agriculture sector, ensured food and nutrition security to the poor and low-income people. “Initiatives have been taken to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change,” she added.
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand and Past President of Rotary International Bhichai Rattakul, Rotarian Dr Ishtiaque A Zaman and Program Chairman Rotarian F H Arif, among others, also spoke on the occasion.
Earlier, the prestigious Rotary International Peace Award was handed over to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Source: UNBConnect