Agency

Salehuddin Ahmed, the governor of the Bangladesh Bank, Sunday stressed the need for greater decentralisation of industry in the war against poverty.

Speaking at a roundtable on the ultra poor of the country at the BRAC centre in Mohakhali, the governor requested businessmen to set up new industrial projects in rural areas to create jobs without urban migration.

"It should be done immediately, the situation is getting worse day-by-day. Employment is more import than self-employment," said Salehuddin.

"We would not see areas outside Dhaka lying in darkness if we had a decentralised industrial development system," he said. The governor cautioned businessmen to be careful about what they understood "corporate social responsibilities" to mean, saying "most of us do not understand the meaning of CSR in Bangladesh".

"Corporate social responsibility does not only mean funding some awareness programmes for acid or AIDS victims, it means investment in the public welfare-oriented sector," said the governor.

Salehuddin said the central bank would support any businessman or woman who wished to invest in areas such as char development initiatives or food production programmes.

The governor went on to say that the geographic location of Bangladesh in relation to climate change remained one of the main challenges for the country in terms of poverty alleviation.

There are many areas in the country where the land alone is not sufficient to provide everyone with an adequate income, the governor said, adding that only industry can provide the necessary impetus to alleviate hardship in those areas. The governor said the poorest people in the country had to be linked to the mainstream economy.

Both microfinance and macro-finance are essential for poverty alleviation, only microfinance is not enough, said Salehuddin. The BB governor, however, added that macro-finance remained the more important of the two in relation to poverty reduction.

Also attending the roundtable was microfinance expert Jasim Uddin of the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation, who conceded that microcredit programmes often failed to reach the ultra-poor.

Many of the speakers, which also included economists and journalists, recommended microfinance organisations to collaborate with the industrial sector in the war against poverty. BRAC organised the discussion.

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