BIIT seminar on Political Economy of Millennium Development Goals: A Critical Assessment of

Achievement and Strategies

Dr M Moniruzzaman, Associate Professor of Political Science, International Islamic University Malaysia

(IIUM) shared an aspect of his research in a well-

attended seminar on 6 September 2015 at its

conference hall of BIIT. The topic of the seminar was

Political E c o n o m y of Millennium Development

Goals: A Critical Assessment of Achievement and

Strategies. Shah Abdul Hannan, President of BIIT

presided over the seminar while Prof. Dr Abulhasan

M Sadeq, Vice Chancellor, Asian University of

Bangladesh and Dr Abdul Latif Masum, Professor of

Government and Politics dept., University of

Jahangirnagar were present as discussants.

The seminar began at 3:00 pm with the recitation of verses from the Quran followed by a thankful address

from Abdullah Al-Amin, Assistant Director of BIIT. He

welcomed everyone to the seminar and also

presented the activities of BIIT in brief getting request

from the chair of the seminar.

Following the welcoming remarks, Dr Moniruzzaman,

at the very beginning of his lecture, described

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a s a noble

i n i t i a t i v e to achieve eight major goals adopted by

the UN in 1990s to be achieved during 2000-2015.

He then stated that this noble initiative deserves

critical assessment of its achievement and strategies

as its time frame is approaching to an end. He uttered that this study has looked into the achievement

level of the MDGs in 35 countries that are categorized as Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). The

speaker argued that about one-third or less of the countries has met few targets but most countries are

either seriously off targets or achieved insufficient

progress. He also argued that the non-achievement is

largely due to dependency on foreign capital; inability

of the countries to allocate higher percentage from

domestic GDP due to low savings and due to

international political and financial systemic influence.

The global war on terror created more political

instability in the countries while the global financial

crisis of 2008 cut the aid flow to those countries and

destabilized domestic economy. Even though, the

HIPC countries are politically independent, they cannot

act in isolation from the global political and economic s t r u c t u r a l influence.

Dr Sadeq in his discussion expressed a great doubt in having any specific plan of the govt. to fulfill the

MDGs in targeted time along with yearly plan, five year plan and so on. He spoke out, as MDGs targets

are not contradictory with Islam, so, we could treat the goals in Islamic perspective that might

strengthen its achievement.

Dr Masum said that out of 8 goals of MDGs, there are

no problems in first 7 goals. The problem is with last

one, i.e. in developing a global partnership for

development. He told that money is not a problem in

development. The problem is in using money in

development purpose. As this study is not a full

picture of the situation, the presenter has been

requested to do another study in this regard so that

the interested one could get the full picture.

Shah Abdul Hannan in his speech said that all the

goals of MDGs are important, not contradictory

with Islam. He pointed out one of the major

reasons of the countries in failing to reach the

target of MDGs in time is not to play the role of

rich countries properly.

The lecture was followed by an animated Question

and Answer session during which members of the

audience engaged with Dr. Moniruzzaman, asking

relevant questions and sharing their thoughts on. In

short, the topic had clearly touched quite a few

chords and stimulated much discussion.