National Sustainable Development Strategy 2010 - 2021

This Development Strategy is a national, multi-sectoral strategy for the sustainable development of Bangladesh for 11 years. The vision of the NSDS developed through extensive consultation with the stakeholders is “Achieving a happy, prosperous and enlightened Bangladesh which is free from hunger, poverty, inequality, illiteracy, and corruption and belongs completely to its citizens and maintains a healthy environment”. The main objective of this Strategy is the sustainable development in priority sectors of the country such as agriculture, industry, energy, transport and human resource development. The NSDS (2010-21) has identified five Strategic Priority Areas (Sustained Economic Growth, Development of Priority Sectors, Urban Development,Social Security and Protection and Environment, Natural Resource and Disaster Management) along with three cross-cutting areas(Good Governance, Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change) with a view to achieving its stated vision and addressing long-term sustainability issues of critical areas.
The Strategy aims at eliminating food insecurity and malnutrition by: a) providing better knowledge in health and nutrition; b) enhancing agricultural production along with diversification; c) mainstreaming nutrition services, integrating nutrition services with maternal nutrition and child health services (MNCH); d) coordinating nutrition activities with other sectors capable of synergistic impact on nutrition; e) mainstreaming gender aspects into nutrition programmes. Food safety is another challenge for Bangladesh affecting food security. The strategies to overcome the problem of food safety are: a) to develop a national policy, strategy and action plan; b) to undertake preventive measures focusing on increasing awareness of consumers about food safety; c) to strengthen food inspection services; d) to establish a central food testing laboratory; and e) strengthen capacity of scientists and technicians. The Strategy also makes a description of the target groups and has a gender sensitive approach in overcoming food insecurity and malnutrition. To this end, the Government operates a number of social safety net programmes to support the chronic poor, the transient poor and people with special circumstances such as people with physical and mental disabilities, poor women and excluded people.
Making agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable is one of the main objectives of the NSDS. The fisheries sub-sector of Bangladesh plays a significant role in the country’s economy in terms of employment generation, nutrition supply and export earnings. It is the third highest export earner of the country. The sector faces various challenges and constraints for sustainable development. The sustainable development in the fisheries sub-sector will be enabled by focusing more on open water fisheries, ensuring biodiversity and preserving natural breeding grounds, enabling product diversification and value addition, capacity building and developing appropriate marketing infrastructure. Involving the key actors e.g. NGOs, private sector entrepreneurs and community based fishing groups is also underlined. Other solutions regarding the challenges of the sector are institutional strengthening of the fisheries sector, enforcing fish friendly infrastructure and community based fisheries management. The strategies for developing production in the livestock sub-sector are to ensure feed and fodder, control of diseases and support small holders. The Strategy also addresses appropriate responses to degradation in a number of areas such as water resources, forest and bio-diversity, land and soil. The strategies to overcome the challenges in water resources shall be restoration of surface water systems, setting forth strategies of river management and dry season water scarcity, increasing water efficiency and reducing waste. One other strategy is setting forth a sustainable groundwater management plan. The NSDS also focuses on the protection and expansion of forests and forest resources, enhancing forest biodiversity and wildlife conservation through expanding protected area, restoring ecosystems and rehabilitating endangered species, ensuring wise use of wetland resource, and people’s ownership of social forestry. The strategies for land and soil management are land zoning, reducing soil and land loss, making sustainable land reclamation and restoring soil fertility. The salinity intrusion and desertification will be solved by increasing fresh water flow from upstream, increasing vegetation coverage and reducing stress on water resources.
Human resource development will comprise several strategies, namely population planning (containment and management), providing quality education and training, and providing quality health and sanitation services, nutrition and food safety for all. The Strategy also emphasizes the Rural Non Farm sector as it contributes to overall development of the country and helps to reduce rural poverty. The key challenge to rural non-farm sector is that rural enterprises are constrained by lack of access to credit, market and electricity and lack of education and raining of entrepreneurs. The strategies include creating an enabling environment focusing on infrastructure, rural electrification, better physical and electronic communication services, education, training and skill formation, technological upgrading, access to market, rural financial services, and business development services.
The Strategy also addresses the commitment and capacity for disaster risk management by integrating DRR and climate change adoption, setting forth afforestation programmes, developing climate tolerant crop variety, improving cyclone and storm surge warning. The Strategy also states that the Climate Change Trust Fund and Climate Change Resilient Fund will be utilized by an enforced monitoring mechanism.
The objectives of governance strategy are to make parliamentary process effective, strengthen local governments and also reform public services, control corruption, promote e-governance, introduce sustainable development audit as well as financial monitoring and judicial and legal system reform. Some other strategies for good governance are improving project implementation capacity, sectoral governance and enforcing government and NGO cooperation. It is also stated that the Government of Bangladesh will establish a sustainable development audit under the Ministry of Finance and a sustainable development monitoring council.