Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman will open the dialogue as the chief guest while Deputy Leader of the Opposition Abdul Hamid Advocate will attend the event as special guest.

Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan will join the closing function as the chief guest. Awami League General Secretary Md Abdul Jalil will be the special guest.

Prof Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the CPD and convenor of the Policy Review Task Forces, will chair the inaugural session.

The three-day forum, split into several working sessions, will discuss a range of issues at separate venues.

The inaugural session includes statements by the co-organisers -- Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star and Motiur Rahman, editor of the Prothom Alo and presentation of policy review reports.

The working sessions on June 4 will be held at three venues -- the CIRDAP Auditorium, Academy for Planning and Development Auditorium and National Press Club.

At the CIRDAP, the issues of budgetary discipline and fiscal programme, financial sector reforms, industrial policy and privatisation and SME will be discussed.

At the Academy for Planning and Development, the working sessions will tackle governance (corruption and judiciary), democratic process (election and parliament) and gender equality and women's empowerment issues.

Development and governance of the energy sector, environment policy, information and communications technology and administrative reform and local government issues will be discussed at the Jatiya Press Club.

The working sessions on June 5 will also be held at the same venues.

At CIRDAP, the issues of transport and infrastructure and urban governance will be discussed while at the Academy for Planning and Development, rural economy, agriculture and non-farm activities and poverty eradication and employment generation will be tackled.

At the Jatiya Press Club, education, health and population policies will be discussed.

The concluding ceremony of the forum will be held at Hotel Sheraton on the same day.

The idea behind the dialogue was to prepare a set of policy brief, prior to the national election, 2001, to provide inputs to the pre-election debate and discussions on critical development issues. The policy brief put forward a set of recommendations for the newly elected government.

In review meetings, fresh recommendations will also come up for the government, which might be used as inputs for finalisation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).

The newly constituted 17 Task Forces include more than 200 eminent specialists, business leaders and representatives from civil society and grassroots organisations.

The National Forum 2003 will finalise the review reports of the Task Forces.