On December 27, 2023, the Awami League (AL), Bangladesh’s oldest and largest political party, unveiled its election manifesto for the upcoming 12th National Parliament Election on January 7, 2024, titled “Smart Bangladesh: Where Development Shines, Accelerating Employment.” As the country navigates its way through rising food prices, a global energy crisis, the damages inflicted by a pandemic, and a myriad of challenges, the election manifesto addresses most of the bottlenecks that are inhibiting the country’s steady progress.
Youth
The manifesto sets 11 priority areas where the AL aims to place the highest political priority if the party is reelected in the upcoming national polls. First, the manifesto is heavily focused on empowering the country’s youth by ensuring education with employability skills and youth employment, as Bangladesh has a huge demographic dividend of working age. It sets the target to reduce the rate of young individuals outside of education, training, and employment programs to 7%. AL intends to formulate a tailored action plan to specifically tackle the challenges related to youth employment. The youth-focused pledges in the manifesto can be broadly categorized into 3 categories: youth skilling and training, generating employment opportunities, and financing to drive entrepreneurship and innovation in Bangladesh.
On the front of youth skilling, the manifesto pledges to provide training to 3.1 million youth for self-reliance. To prepare the country’s youth for the 4IR and the evolving global labor market landscape, the manifesto proposes to redesign technical and vocational educational institutes (TVET) as Smart Youth Hubs. To increase the accessibility of youth skills training programs to the very grassroots of the country, the manifesto envisages establishing youth training and employment centers, installing libraries, and extending youth employment programs at all the subdristict levels. To promote inclusive education and leave-no-one-behind, the manifesto outlines the pledge to ensure education, training, or treatment schemes for young individuals with disabilities and hardships.
In terms of creating more employment opportunities, the manifesto envisions employing an additional 1.5 crore people by 2030 with the aim of reducing the unemployment rate to 3% by 2028. AL also plans to create more opportunities in the online job market and add new jobs in various sectors.
As access to finance is pivotal to transforming Bangladesh into an entrepreneurial hub, the manifesto puts forth bold proposals to solve the bottleneck. AL promises to disburse a youth loan of BDT 750 crore among 250,000 young individuals in an effort to make them self-employed. The manifesto also suggests that initiatives will be taken to extend loans to employable, trained youth for self-employment ventures. The party also promised to facilitate access to loans for small and medium industries, as well as women entrepreneurs, as a priority, with efforts directed towards simplifying the loan application process.
Inflation
Second, AL pledges to tackle the ongoing inflationary pressure on the economy head on by undertaking efforts to reduce the price of goods and keep them within affordable price range.
Agriculture, Food and Nutrition
Third, as per their election manifesto, AL aims to prioritize increasing investments in agricultural mechanization and agro-processing to maximize profitability. In addition, to ensure food and nutritional security for all through agriculture, the manifesto promises to disburse agricultural loans at a subsidized interest rate of 4% with a view to making agricultural loans more accessible and affordable. To incentivize commercial banks to distribute agricultural loans, the manifesto proposes that the central bank will refinance commercial banks at a rate of 0.5%. AL promises to bring all lands under cultivation. Also, the party pledges to make easy-to-use agricultural machinery available to address labor shortages and increase productivity in agriculture while putting significant emphasis on integrated farming and environmental protection. The party also promises to install multi-purpose cold storage and crop processing units at the local level, accompanied by efforts to develop an efficient agricultural supply chain in Bangladesh. Interestingly, the manifesto pledges to increase the service length of the most successful and efficient agricultural scientists so that the country can benefit from their talent and experience.
Healthcare
Fourth, AL pledges to ensure affordable and universal healthcare, especially for low-income segments The party envisages issuing a unique health ID to every individual and introducing hospital automation management. The manifesto outlines establishing a Public Health University and an international standard vaccine research center while facilitating joint initiatives of Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB) scientists and research institutions for matters of public health, including vaccine invention. The manifesto also proposes to effectively deliver mental and autism healthcare at all levels of the country.
Four key priority areas that are noteworthy are:
- Building a Smart Bangladesh based on modern technology.
- Increasing funding for industry expansion.
- Enhancing efficiency and capacity of the financial sector, including banks.
- Introducing and implementing the ‘Universal Pension Scheme’.
Poverty, Inequality and Social Security
While undertaking initiatives to generate employment for citizens, the country’s oldest political party pledges to transform the rural agrarian economy into an industrial and digital economy powered by the future service sector. The manifesto champions the initiative ‘My Village, My Town’ (Amar Gram, Amar Shahar) to extend modern urban facilities and amenities to every village in Bangladesh, including implementing self-employment schemes in the villages to discourage the migration of people to urban areas. The party pledges to eliminate all forms of inequality by connecting all to the mainstream of the economy through financial and digital inclusion. Also, it promises to make Bangladesh free from begging and vagrancy.
Industrial Development, Investment and Foreign Trade
For the past couple of decades, Bangladesh has been primarily reliant on the Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector. AL now aims to diversify the country’s export basket by undertaking policy measures for other potential sectors such as leather, jute, IT, agro-processing, sea food, hala products, light engineering, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, toys, jewelry, furniture and small, medium and cottage industries.
To simplify company registation and legal obligations for business and commerce, the manifesto pledges to set up specialized courts connectable from all the divisional cities of the country, with the facility of virtual courts, by amending the Companies Act and settling legal cases related to companies. The party also aims to continue special initiatives for the development of blacksmiths and potters. The manifesto also proposes to simplify regulations and eliminate procedural complications to attract foreign investment in Bangladesh.
To boost foreign trade, AL pledges to engage in negotiations with foreign trade partners from the European Union, the UK, and other nations to secure a grace period for quota benefits, even post-graduation to middle-income status. Also, the party intends to strengthen existing trade agreements for partnership, open market access, and priority trade with countries such as India, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka while conducting feasibility studies on the South American common market of Mercosur, Russia, and East European markets to inform strategic trade expansion.
Power and Energy
AL pledges to ensure uninterrupted and quality power and energy supply for all. To that end, the manifesto proposes the implementation of a long-term plan to increase power generation capacity to 40,000 MW by 2030 and 60,000 MW by 2041. The manifesto also notes that the retirement of rental and inefficient power plants will be completed in phases. Also, the number of transmission lines will be increased to 24,000 circuit kilometers.
In efforts to diversify the country’s energy mix, AL pledges to produce 10,000 MW of electricity from clean energy sources while making the grids suitable for the transmission of electricity generated by renewable and nuclear power plants. In addition, AL also plans to accelerate the import of hydropower from Nepal and Bhutan. In terms of non-renewable sources, AL aims to continue exploration and development of oil and gas with foreign companies. Also, the party pledges that the fuel oil refinancing capacity of Khox Eastern Refinery will be increased from 1.5 lakh metric tons to 4.5 lakh metric tons.
Communication
AL pledges to construct 12 expressways by 2041: Dhaka-Chattogram, Dhaka-Chattogram (elevated), Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka Outer Ring Road, Dhaka-Bogra, Mirsarai-Cox’s Bazar, Mymensingh-Bogra, Gabtali-Paturia, Kazirhat, Feni-Barishal, Paturia-Daultadia, Jhenaidah-Kushtia-Dashuria. The manifesto promises that all roads and highways will be converted to four lanes in phases. Construction of MRT-1 (Airport-Kamalapur and New Bazar-Purbachal Depot), MRT-2 (Gabatli-Kanchpur Bridhe), MRT-4 (Kamalapur-Narayanganj) and MRT-5 (Savar-Bhatara) is also promised to be completed by 2030.
The manifesto also outlines the dredging of major and minor rivers, ensuring the cleanliness of the rivers and year-round navigability and modernizing the old navigation systems across the country to reduce transportation costs. A circular navigation system is pledged to build around Dhaka.
AL also aims to develop quality international airports and constrict new airports while placing priority to the construction of Bagerhat Khan Jahan Ali Airport. In addition, the party aims to add state-of-the-art aircrafts to Bangladesh Biman and turn the company into a commercial success. More importantly, the party promises to enact and implement a Road Safety Act to make roads safer.
Other Key Areas
The election manifesto of Awami League heavily focuses on improving the conditions of various underserved segments of the population, including religious and ethnic minorities such as hindus, hijras, dalits and so on. In addition, the party pledges to extend its social protection umbrella to the elderly, people with disabilities, children, women, and freedom fighters. It also aims to strenthen the country’s education system with various policy measures.
The party also pledges to undertake efforts to enhance the safe water supply and sewage system, with plans to make the water supply system environmentally friendly by 2028. Five sewage treatment plants are in the pipeline to increase the city’s treatment capacity from 20 percent to 100 percent by 2030. It aims to establish a waste management system up to district, upazila and union levels and intends to formulate a comprehensive action plan that has been initiated to establish safe water sources, install water treatment plants, implement waste management, and ensure hygienic sanitation systems for every household in rural areas.
Lastly, the party pledges its commitment to the blue economy, climate action, and environmental protection to build a Smart Bangladesh where development will be inclusive and the state will be citizen-friendly.
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