Building back better in the post-COVID-19 world

What message do you have for our readers on International Youth Day?

This year, International Youth Day (#IYD2021) takes place in a challenging context, including in Bangladesh, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has disrupted education and opportunities for young people worldwide. Schools in Bangladesh have been closed since March last year.

I am looking forward to the reopening of schools when the conditions allow, and to all children benefitting from the irreplaceable direct interactions with their teachers and classmates.

My message is that, in the meantime, we must support the resilience and creativity of our youth through the crisis, and foster the opportunities that will allow us to build back better in the post-COVID-19 world. Our goal is to build a more sustainable ecosystem for future generations of young people, as the theme of this year’s #IYD2021 indicates: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.

What is the EU doing to help in this area?

I am dedicated to boost youth empowerment and participation in our EU external action – and I have appointed a Youth Special Adviser and launched a Youth Sounding Board of 25 young members to support me in this endeavour.

This of course includes providing them with the tools to be youth innovators for the future.

I am impressed with the transformation and expansion of technical education and vocation training (TVET) and the skills system in Bangladesh over the past decade. I am also proud that the EU has supported this change.

Currently we are helping with the digitalisation of TVET through an EU-funded project called Skills-21, implemented by ILO. Among other activities that help to strengthen the skills’ development system, the project has created an E-campus, the first platform in Bangladesh to host and run distance learning courses to both TVET students and teachers.

The project is also working on the digitalisation of training courses for teachers and youth. Over 170 online training contents were developed by teachers to deliver online training for teachers and students during COVID-19.

In your opinion, what are the main steps Bangladesh should address to mitigate the losses in the Education sector caused by the pandemic? If you would have to pick one key investment in order to improve the quality of education in Bangladesh, what would it be?

Education is one of my top priorities and I have decided to increase our support to education from 7% to 10% of EU external action funding for the next 7 years – this includes increasing our contribution to the Global Partnership for Education to 700 million. That is why I am delighted that in Bangladesh, the EU is supporting primary education and skills through ‘budget support’, i.e. direct payments to the Bangladesh government.

We believe that continued investment in teacher development is where we can make the biggest difference for more and better education. Excellent teacher training and support, before teachers are sent to schools, is essential to ensure quality education. That is why the EU has helped with the National Technical & Vocational Qualification Framework, the establishment of two Centres of Skills Excellence (CSEs) for trainers, assessors and managers of education and training institutions. Working through the Bangladesh systems, we are now helping to increase the number of TVET Trainers who are trained and certified.

In June, the EU announced its two Team Europe Initiatives for Bangladesh, one on Decent Work, the other on Green Energy Transition. Why is it called a Team Europe initiative and not simply a European Union initiative? What does ‘Decent work’ mean for the European Union? Is it just about health and safety at the work place or also about higher salaries? What does Green Energy Transition mean for the European Union?

Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs) are joint actions by the EU, its Member States, and the European development finance institutions aiming at fast-tracking progress and reforms in specific sectors. Some of the EU’s Member States have their own bilateral cooperation with countries, but when we come together to pool expertise and resources we talk about ‘Team Europe’.

For the EU, decent work means employment creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue. As part of our strong commitment to multilateralism, we use the Decent Work Agenda originally developed by the ILO that now forms part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Decent work means health and safety at the workplace, it also means sustainable economic growth and full and productive employment. Decent jobs with appropriate salaries are part of that agenda.

The EU is supporting the Bangladesh Government in designing and implementing employment policy, including the creation of decent jobs, safety net programmes, access to quality education, employment services and lifelong learning opportunities.

For the EU, the green energy transition means a profound transformation of national economies from fossil-based towards zero carbon and zero pollution. It holds unprecedented opportunities for the development of national economies, but at the same time must ensure that no one is left behind.

The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent recovery efforts are both a challenge and an opportunity for an economic recovery through a green energy transition that moves towards low-carbon, climate-resilient and sustainable development pathways.

The Team Europe Initiative on Green Energy Transition (TEI GET) aims at supporting Bangladesh to build a power system that leads to maximum coverage of the country’s energy demand through renewable energy while reducing GHG emissions, energy consumption and demand through energy efficiency.

The Team Europe Initiative on Green Energy Transition is based on four pillars, which are strictly connected in their common effort to support Bangladesh in decarbonising its energy system by promoting public and private investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, hence reducing environmental degradation and ultimately contributing to the global response to climate change. The four pillars are:

1. Raising awareness

2. Market intervention in favour of sustainable energy,

3. Adapting the grid infrastructure to integrate variable renewable energy sources

4. Energy efficiency

Now is the time to transform our societies and economies both in Europe as well as in Bangladesh. We need to move from ‘business as usual’ approaches to integrated, longer-term strategies for a low carbon, climate resilient society.

For more than four years, Bangladesh has been hosting more than 1 million Rohingya refugees. Can the International community and the EU do more to bring about a feasible solution to the Rohingya complication?

First, I wish to thank the Government and the people of Bangladesh for hosting the Rohingya refugees.

A sustainable solution to this displacement crisis can only be found in Myanmar. The military coup in February has further complicated the situation, and we will continue to seek solutions.

The displaced Rohingya have access to humanitarian assistance, basic services and essential development assistance, and the international community is trying to improve the multi-year planning process to provide more predictability in funding and in the support they receive.

We would also like to do more in the area of mid-term education solutions for the Rohingya youth in the camps, to prevent a “lost generation”. We will be engaging with the Bangladesh authorities on these matters.

Bangladesh will be graduating from the LDC status in 2026 and, by definition, will lose preferential access to the EU under the GSP ‘Everything but arms’ trade regime. As a graduating LDC, it needs continued market access in the EU to sustain its economic growth and progress on poverty alleviation. How can the EU help Bangladesh continue to have flexible trade regime in the EU after graduation, including by potentially offering GSP plus scheme?

I am pleased that Bangladesh, which has benefited from the Generalised System of Preferences Everything but Arms (EBA) quota free and duty free market access to the EU, has made significant strides in its socio-economic and human development indicators and will soon graduate from the Least Developed Country (LDC) status.

The EU has been a reliable trade partner for Bangladesh in the last decades. The preferential market access that we provide under EBA is a prime example of the depth and breadth of our trade relations. No other LDC in the world has taken as much advantage of the EBA programme as Bangladesh has done, being the source of over 60% of all EBA exports heading to the EU. In 2019, EBA exports from Bangladesh amounted to more than EUR 16 billion and approximately EUR 2 billion in duties were saved by Bangladesh on an annual basis.

Bangladesh has done remarkably well in translating the gains in exports to develop a ready-made garments industry which is today the second in the world. The sector employs millions of workers, especially women. The EBA’s contribution to Bangladesh’s economic and social progress shows the success of the EU’s GSP programme in helping LDCs overcome poverty and reap the benefits of the international trading system.

The EU will continue to support its partner countries, especially the least developed ones, to improve their trading capacity, as a means of promoting development.

After graduation, Bangladesh will lose eligibility under the EBA and has to qualify for other GSP programmes, for continued access to the EU market.

For any future preferential trade arrangement, Bangladesh has to uphold the principles laid down in international conventions on fundamental human rights and labour rights. It will be especially important to make progress on labour and environmental standards, which are part of the UN conventions, and are important to ensure sustainable development, including the Sustainable Development Goals.

In this respect, the European Commission is working closely with the Government of Bangladesh to develop a national labour sector plan of action, and I am glad to say that the Government of Bangladesh submitted on 1 July its National Action Plan on Labour Rights for the next five years. It includes commitments to eliminate child labour, bring the Bangladesh Labour Act and Export Processing Zone labour law in compliance with the requests of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) supervisory mechanism, uplift the capacity of the Labour Inspectorate, and complete the pending works to ensure safety in garment factories.

The implementation of the reforms is still ahead of us. This will require our continued close engagement with Bangladesh’s authorities. As it stands, the EU is currently defining its future GSP regulation, and the implementation of Bangladesh’s national plan of action will have a significant positive impact on any EU policy for Bangladesh in terms of future market access. The EU stands ready to support Bangladesh in implementing this roadmap and taking our trade relations to a new height. For that purpose, the EU is engaging ILO to provide technical assistance to the Government of Bangladesh during the implementation process.

Since the Covid19 pandemic is a global challenge and needs a global response, what is the EU doing to make Covid19 vaccines available in developing countries, especially in the LDCs? More generally, how is Europe supporting the LDC countries like Bangladesh in these difficult times?

The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed a global challenge. The European Union has been leading the global multilateral response, including by helping to launch the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and its vaccines pillar COVAX. As Team Europe – together with our Member States and financial institutions – we support COVAX with more than EUR 3 billion.

As readers will be aware, there are issues with global supply chains, and the EU has been working with its industrial partners to make even more of this vaccine available for low- and middle-income countries. President von der Leyen recently announced that BioNTech/Pfizer, together with Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, had committed to making available 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021 at no profit for low-income countries, and at lower prices for middle-income countries. Many of these doses will be distributed through COVAX. EU Member States have also committed to share at least 100 million doses by the end of 2021. At the end of July, we were proud to announce that we plan to donate a further 200 Million vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

More widely, Europe has mobilised more than EUR 300 million to support Bangladesh face the dramatic economic and social impact of the pandemic, including bringing forward a payment of EUR 113 million to help Bangladesh’s social protection programme.

Bangladesh would like to welcome you to come and visit our country, to meet our people and see our development at first hand!

Thank you for the kind invitation!

I have heard a lot about the transformation of Bangladesh, and about your excellent economic and social development. I would like to come and see your wonderful country in person. Bangladesh has made a lot of progress in recent years, and I would like to experience on the ground the progress and social change taking place. Such a visit would also be the opportunity to meet and interact with key Bangladeshi counterparts, and to take our partnership to the next level. I hope that there will be an opportunity to do this in the future.

Thank you and Happy International Youth Day!