With the younger population facing disruptions in employment, income generation, landing jobs, and other vulnerabilities caused by the unprecedented pandemic, the Center for Research and Information’s (CRI) youth platform Young Bangla has organized a policy discussion series.

The series titled “Let’s Talk on Youth Plus Covid19 Recovery: Employment & Entrepreneurship” discussed on creating opportunities for young people to enter the labor market, ensuring allocations for MSMEs, and strategies to generate employment for young people.

Sheikh Fazle Fahim, the youngest president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) attended as a panel in one of the discussion sessions titled “Youth at Work”.

Speaking at the occasion the FBCCI president said, “Earlier in March we had received projections from various think tanks and economists of a doomsday scenario playing out in Bangladesh with many concluding the nation’s macro-economic conditions to be unstable.”

“But the government’s pragmatic response on policy support with the help of the Finance Ministry, and Bangladesh Bank was surprising to both domestic and international communities”, he added.

Fahim further highlighted the government’s stimulus package, economic interventions, and instruments entailing the increase of money circulation, the introduction of social safety net, food aid, the increase of liquidity in banks, ensuring access to capital for CRR banks, and other comprehensive measures that have helped the nation to sustain the economy and proceed towards the recovery process.

Speaking about the potential unemployment, job losses, and job soaking phenomenon the president said, “The larger sectors of the nation that employes a major segment of the labor force such as RMG, Logistics, etc. have not seen any major job loss apart from salary cuts, to sustain operations.

The prime minister’s stimulus package has already ensured a social safety net in case of any job loss entailing subsidies and collateral-free tools entailing Jubo Unnoyon Bank, PKSF, Krishi Unnoyon Bank, and Polli Unnoyon Bank.

To rehabilitate returning remittance workers programs have been initiated which they can avail. Even our Singaporean counterparts have ensured us of taking all necessary steps to protect our migrant workers. Furthermore, Qatar has passed a law to safeguard our migrant workers,” he added.

He also highlighted the different challenges faced in trying to avail other government stimulus packages in specific sectors, such as the absence of employee data that would ensure a smooth and uninterrupted cash flow from the government.

Additionally, the FBCCI president highlighted specific initiatives of the association entailing TVET, FBCCI ADR Center, FBCCI Economic & Policy Applied Research Centre, FBCCI Tech Center, FBCCI Skills Lab, and FBCCI University which are actively working to help youth entrepreneurs and enabling job generation and said, “Bangladesh is not going to break down and we will move forward with flying colors while taking consolidated measures and putting everything together.”

Dr. Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, MP, Hon.ble Minister, Ministry of Agriculture during the discussion session underscored the role of the youth demographic in the Agriculture sector of the country. "Agriculture is such a potent sector of the nation but the youth have been moving farther away from it. There is a lot to leverage from such a potent sector especially for the youth who are capable of absorbing knowledge very fast, " he added.

Dr. Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, MP, Hon.ble Minister, Ministry of Agriculture; Mr. Md. Ashadul Islam, Senior Secretary, Bank, and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) of the Ministry of Finance; Ms. Farzana Chowdhury, Managing Director & CEO, Green Delta Insurance Limited; Mr. Keshab Roy, Joy Bangla Youth Award Winner 2015; Imran Ahmed, Deputy Executive Director, Head of Programs, Shakti Foundation; and Syed Mafiz Kamal, Senior Analyst of Centre for Research and Information (CRI) took part in the discussion session moderated by Sarah Kamal, the President of Junior Chamber International (JCI)I Bangladesh.