Bangladesh meet focuses on empowering poor through ICTs

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) should be used strategically and optimistically for empowering the poor especially for the vulnerable people of coastal area, said Syed Marghub Murshed, former Secretary, government of Bangladesh. He spoke this in an inception meeting of a project named,” Strategic Use of ICT for Poverty Reduction”, organized by Dwip Unnayan Shangtha (DUS) in collaboration with Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC), on July 17, 2007 at BRAC INN, Mohakhali, Dhaka. Syed Marghub Murshed was the Chief Guest while BMM Mozharul Huq, Consultant of Disaster Management Cluster, UNDP and Dr. Jahedul Alam, Chairperson of Hatiya Dwip Samity were the Special guests. Among others, Geeta Malhotra, Head-ICT Advocacy Grassroots Communication and Capacity Building of One World South Asia, the donor of the project and representatives from HLCIT – Nepal, SEWA- India, D.Net, HASAB, HASI, NIRAPAD, Disaster Forum, OVC, CPP, BDPC, Action-Aid Bangladesh, ALRD, BRIDGE, WIN Incorporate, DUS, Hatiya Dwip Samity and representatives from media attended the meeting. The program was started with the inaugural speech by Rafiqul Alam, Executive Director of DUS. Mr. Alam welcomed the participants in the meeting. He also played the role of moderator in the meeting. Dwip Unnayan Shangtha took this project with the view to undertake activities for poor island community to build their capacities on development information sharing along with to enable them to use various media tools namely print, radio and internet to minimize their sufferings in livelihood options at Hatiya of Noakhali district. The outcomes of the project will be exhibited as showcase at GK3 meeting of Kualalampur, Malasia and at AMARC. In the meeting on behalf of DUS, BNNRC and OWSA three individual presentations were made by Mr. Shamir Chandra Adhikari, Program coordinator, Dus, AHM Bazlur Rahman, Chief Executive Officer of BNNRC and Ms. Geeta Malhotra, from OWSA respectively in the meeting. Mr. BMM Mozharul Huq said we have supplements the ICT initiatives with the government efforts to reduce the damages of disaster. The alarming signals should be given in due time and these should be understood by the community people, he commented. Source: BNNRC

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