Atiur Rahman, Governor, Bangladesh Bank :
Unblocking advancement opportunities for the disadvantaged population segments with poverty alleviation interventions in areas of disaster relief, healthcare, education, training, and financing support for their productive pursuits constitute one major dimension of SR; safety and fairness in work environment is another major dimension; and transition from traditional polluting output practices and processes to environmentally sustainable green options is yet another major dimensions of SR
We at Bangladesh Bank (BB) got engaged early on, from 2008, towards mainstreaming socially responsible business ethos and business conduct in our financial sector; with thrusts on socially responsible inclusive and environmentally benign financing, on adoption of energy efficient low carbon internal processes and practices, and on safety and fairness in working conditions. SR engagements of our financial sector have increased manifold since then; inclusive financing of agriculture, SMEs and other underserved productive sectors have upheld output growth, employment and domestic demand during the global financial crisis and the global growth slowdown in its aftermath. Green financing has enabled rapid progress in solar and biomass based renewable energy generation, in adoption of energy efficient brick making technology, in industrial effluent treatment, and so forth. The progress has been made possible by enthusiastic engagement of all financial intermediaries, supported by enabling measures including a major BB led modernization of the financial sector IT infrastructure bringing in mobile phone/smart card based cost efficient off branch financial service delivery, and refinance lines against lending to SMEs and green projects. BB’s support initiatives for socially responsible financing initiatives have already drawn extensive external attention, including interalia from WB, ADB, IMF, UN agencies.
In the real sector as well, we are seeing manifold increase in SR engagements of non financial corporates in the recent years. Our apparels manufacturer-exporters facing challenges in meeting work environment safety standards in their factories are being supported by the GOB, development partners, buying chains and philanthropies from rich countries. Both financial and real sector corporates are increasingly engaging both in their own SR initiatives and also in contributing substantially to platforms of government initiatives such as PM’s relief fund.
SR initiatives in Bangladesh are rooted in our broad social consensus for equitable socioeconomic growth and development, which is why our social development indicators are now better on many counts than in our higher income near neighbors; and for the same reason SR initiatives are set to grow much further over the coming years in Bangladesh with broad based engagement of public authorities, public and private sector financial and non financial businesses, local and regional/global civil society organizations, development partners, and so forth. Effective networking and cooperation among such diverse mix of SR promotion drivers can hugely synergize positive outcomes through deepening awareness, mutual learning and optimally efficient deployment of resources.
