Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressing the 67th UN General Assembly (UNGA) session at UN Headquarters in New York Thursday.

NEW YORK, Sept 28 (Agencies): Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Thursday renewed her demand for reforming the United Nations, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions (IFIs) as their structures and decision-making processes reflected the 60-year-old power equations.

"I join the vast majority of the UN members in reemphasising the urgent need to reform the United Nations, the Bretton Woods Institution, and other IFIs, as their structure and decision-making process reflect the 60-year-old power equations," she said addressing the 67th UN General Assembly (UNGA) session at UN Headquarters here Thursday.

Pointing finger at the UN and IFIs for what she said serving the interests of a privileged few and ignoring the large majority, the Prime Minister said the new millennium has ushered in a changed world order based on justice, mutual respect and sovereign equality.

Hasina said, "Today, we talk boldly about justice, equality, democracy, freedom, human rights, environment, and adverse impacts of climate change. These are the priorities of our time which we must acknowledge in place of the hangovers of the past."

Eleven other heads of state and government addressed the session with Bangladesh Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Abdul Momen in the chair.

Highlighting Bangladesh's overall social and economic progress since 2009, the Prime Minister said, "Our efforts helped reduce poverty by 10 per cent; attain gross domestic product (GDP) at the rate of 6.5 per cent, enhance per capita income by 34.6 pc, reduce overall inflation from double digits to 4.97 pc with food inflation from 13 pc in 2008 to presently 2.25 pc."

Around 7.5 million people were employed in the private sector and 0.5 million in the public sector over the last three and a half years, she said, adding annual export has grown up annually by 19 pc while 1.87 million people went abroad with overseas jobs.

About the macroeconomic stability of Bangladesh, the Prime Minister said the successes in various sectors helped achieve millennium development goal (MDG)-3, MDG-4 and MDG-5 on gender parity, infant and maternal mortality ahead of 2015.

Pointing out people's uprising, intra-state conflicts, climate change disasters, global financial crises, food and energy insecurity, human rights violations and terrorism, she said, "We have to take collective efforts for peaceful resolution of the conflicts and crises in the UN floor."

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/29-Sep-12