Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Planning Prof Dr Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir today said Bangladesh’s experience with overseas employment, export-oriented garment manufacturing and emerging social protection initiatives offers examples of how public policy can connect household welfare with productive economic activities.
Addressing Session III on “Financing Equality: Resource Mobilisation for Public Services” at a high-level regional conference at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, Titumir stressed the need to replace fragmented social safety-net programmes with a comprehensive social security system linked to productive investment, formal employment generation and an expanded tax base.
The conference, titled “An Asia for Everyone: Public Services, Social Protection and the Promise of Shared Prosperity,” brought together policymakers, economists, researchers and development practitioners to discuss the region’s growing inequality and the role of public services and social protection in promoting shared prosperity, said a press release here.
Organised by the Faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University and Oxfam in Asia, the conference was held ahead of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings in Bangkok.
In his address, Titumir highlighted the economic and social challenges facing Bangladesh, saying the country needed to strengthen social protection and improve the delivery of public services to ensure that economic growth translated into better living standards for all.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic and weaknesses in the previous system of social protection had compounded economic hardship, with an estimated 7 million to 10 million additional people pushed into poverty, according to the figures cited in his presentation.
He also criticised the fragmentation of traditional social safety-net programmes, pointing to inclusion and exclusion errors that prevent assistance from reaching many people who need it while allowing ineligible beneficiaries to receive support.
Titumir outlined a shift towards a lifecycle-based social security system designed to provide more comprehensive support to people at different stages of life.
He highlighted the Family Card initiative, which is designed to deliver assistance directly to women through digital government-to-person (G2P) transfers. Projections cited in the presentation suggest that beneficiary coverage could reach 16.1 million people by 2030, potentially reducing the national poverty rate by five percentage points.
He also outlined the Farmer Card scheme, which aims to provide eligible farmers with cash incentives and improved access to agricultural services.
Economic simulations cited in the presentation project that the initiative could increase agricultural output and real gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.7 to 1.0 percent relative to the baseline by 2030.
Emphasising the link between social protection and productive economic activity, Titumir said sustainable poverty reduction required greater investment in production, the creation of formal-sector jobs and the expansion of the formal economy.
He identified two major employment transformations in Bangladesh’s economic history.
The first involved linking the country’s abundant labour supply with employment opportunities in Middle Eastern and Gulf countries, helping expand overseas employment and remittance inflows.
The second was the entry of large numbers of women into the formal workforce, particularly through the growth of the readymade garment (RMG) industry.
He also highlighted environmental initiatives, including a proposed programme to excavate and re-excavate 20,000 kilometres of canals and a five-year campaign to plant 250 million trees.
Titumir presented six proposals for international cooperation to help developing economies withstand external shocks, ease financing constraints and protect development gains.
The proposals include establishing a dedicated multilateral liquidity facility to provide rapid concessional financing to countries affected by energy price shocks and introducing guarantees for food and fertiliser shipments to strengthen food security during periods of international market disruption.
He also called for automatic sovereign debt relief mechanisms that would suspend debt payments during major external crises, as well as the reallocation of unused Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from advanced economies to developing countries facing financial vulnerabilities.
On climate finance, he stressed the need to address imbalances in the distribution of Green Climate Fund resources and improve carbon-market mechanisms so that vulnerable countries can obtain greater support for climate adaptation.
His sixth proposal focused on strengthening South-South cooperation and regional free trade agreements to improve supply-chain resilience and expand economic opportunities, including through closer economic cooperation among Bangladesh, Thailand and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal region.
The conference also highlighted findings from Oxfam’s policy brief, “Rigged from Birth: How Inequality Steals Futures in Asia and the Five Public Services That Can Reverse It,” which examines the effects of economic inequality on access to essential services and opportunities.
According to figures cited in the conference material, the richest 10 percent of people in Asia receive between 60 and 77 percent of national income, while the poorest half receive only 12 to 15 percent.
The material also estimates that the wealth of Asian billionaires rose by more than 120 percent over a decade to between US$3.4 trillion and US$4 trillion in 2025, while the region’s wealth Gini coefficient reached 0.72.
More than 250 million people reportedly failed to escape poverty because of rising inequality, while over 500 million people, or 18.9 percent of developing Asia’s population, remained in or near poverty.
The conference material further highlighted the growing pressure of public debt on social spending. More than 2.1 billion people in Asia and the Pacific live in countries where interest payments on public debt exceed spending on health or education.
External debt servicing by Asian low- and middle-income countries reached US$443.5 billion in 2022, according to the cited figures. The material also warned that fiscal austerity could constrain public investment and social expenditure across the region.
Social protection gaps remain substantial, with an estimated 46.4 percent of the Asia-Pacific population, or around 2.1 billion people, lacking access to any social protection benefit.
The average tax-to-GDP ratio across 37 Asian and Pacific economies stands at 19.6 percent, compared with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 33.9 percent, the figures showed.
The policy brief also estimated that an annual wealth tax of 2 to 5 percent on the region’s wealthiest people could generate US$792 billion, potentially providing significant additional resources for public services.
Climate change and the digital divide were identified as further challenges. Asia suffered an estimated US$65 billion in losses from climate disasters in 2023, while 330 million women in South Asia reportedly lacked access to mobile internet.
The conference material also highlighted the economic cost of unpaid care work, noting that addressing the disproportionate burden borne by women could generate substantial economic benefits across the Asia-Pacific region.
The programme featured a keynote address by Prof. Kate Pickett of the University of York on “The Inequality Crisis: Global Evidence, Asian Realities and What Governments Must Do.”
Session I, titled “Education and Health: The Foundations of Equal Societies,” featured Dr. Somsak Chunharas, president of Thailand’s National Health Foundation, and Dr. Upali Pannilage, Sri Lanka’s minister for rural development, social security and community empowerment.
Session II, titled “Building the Equality Infrastructure: Social Protection, Care and Digital Public Services,” featured Dr. Ninpaseuth Xayaphonesy of the Lao Women’s Union and Dr. Suphannada Lowhachai of Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).
Session III, on financing equality and mobilising resources for public services, also featured Prof. Dr. David McCoy, research lead at the United Nations University, and Philippine representative Jude Acidre. Associate Professor Dr. Yong Yoon moderated the session.
Other participants included Prof. Nopphol Witvorapong, dean of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Economics; John Samuel, Asia regional director at Oxfam International; and Mustafa Talpur, head of advocacy and campaigns at Oxfam Asia.
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