Prepare youth to face the challenges of emerging world order: PM Hasina at World of Work summit

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has put emphasis on international initiatives to help prepare the young generation to face the challenges of the coming world order.

"That is what we expect from international communities and organisations," she said on Wednesday responding to a question before joining the plenary session of the two-day "World of Work Summit: Social Justice for All" in the Swiss city of Geneva.

This is a high-level forum for global voices to address the need for increased, coordinated and coherent action in support of social justice.

"What I feel is that the international community needs to put social justice at the heart of the international development agenda like SDGs," she said.

In Bangladesh, the PM said, her government has undertaken massive social safety net programmes.

"It is for labourers, farmers, elderly people and students. Even the working and lactating mothers and disabled people are covered by the programmes," she said.

She mentioned that the government is giving them allowances too.

"We have created social safety net in our humble way. But I think that it should be in a massive way. And ILO can take an initiative in this regard and international community should come forward to assist people to ensure that no one is left behind," she said.

The prime minister reiterated her call that there can be no lasting peace or sustainable development without social justice.

She said the world is changing, the new technology is coming, and the fourth industrial revolution is in the offing.

"What we want is that no one should lose their job. So to create job opportunities what we need is education. Everybody must learn about digital devices and know how to use it," she said.

For this purpose, she put emphasis on giving priority to providing training on new technology.

"The people should become skilled. That is what we are doing in our country," she said.

She said that the government is giving education to them.

"We have introduced digital laboratories and computer laboratories from the school level. Then the training and incubation centres have been set up. Young generation get their training there. We are preparing our people," she said.