PM urges world leaders to include migrant issue in post-2015 development agenda

"It is crucial that we all view every migrant as a human person - not just as an 'element of economic activity or production'. They must enjoy all rights - as every other person," she said.

It's a growing need for social protection for migrants and members of their families in the countries like Bangladesh, exposed to climate change and facing some acute challenges, while safeguarding lives and livelihoods of millions of people, she said.

The Prime Minister was inaugurating a two-day Global Expert Meeting on Migration in the Post-2015 Development Agenda at Hotel Rupashi Bangla here today.

Sheikh Hasina said the world population continues growing. Technological advances, production management and demand for basic services are rising to shape global human mobility patterns.

The world must outline the ways how the developed and developing countries together can address the challenges of global demographics and reap benefit from migration and mobility, she said.

Laying importance on placing people at the centre of all developmental pursuits, she said, "We must ensure dignity and well- being of people".

Welcoming the participants of the Global Meeting, she said, Bangladesh is co- hosting this Meeting with Switzerland to secure a rightful place for migration within the emerging architecture of the Post- 2015 Development Agenda.

She said Bangladesh like many other countries is engaged at the national and global levels on articulation of the Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs within Post-2015 Agenda with considerable interest. Over the past decades, she said, Bangladesh accomplished laudable social and economic achievements, particularly in poverty eradication and women empowerment.

"Our GDP continues to grow at six percent. Our economy has shown appreciable resilience in spite of so many challenges. Against our target of halving population living in absolute poverty to around 29%, we have already reached 31%," she said.

She proposed six possible targets and indicators for Post- 2015 Development agenda, saying, in that way, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can prove to be visionary and transformative for all our countries over the next 15 years. The proposals are: first-Considering the social value of the
experience, skill and ideas of the migrants (social remittance), second- Viewing a migrant person as an agent of development, third- Creating an enabling atmosphere for migrants, especially women and girls, fourth- Provide quality basic education and vocational and technical education for migrants and member of their families, matched with changing demand in markets, fifth- Partnership' and Collaboration between developed and developing countries in sharing greater quantum of finance- knowledge- technology, and finally- Grant all rights to migrants as the world agreed in 2012 in Rio.