Dhaka elected vice-president of CIRDAP meeting
BSS, Jakarta
Bangladesh was elected vice-president of the 24th meeting of the Executive Committee (EC) of the regional forum CIRDAP yesterday as the delegates from member countries showered praises on Dhaka for its contributions to the cause of poverty alleviation and rural development in the Asia-Pacific region. The Dhaka-based Centre for Integrated Rural Development in Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) was set up in 1979 with the active support of the FAO and other donor nations and agencies. Bangladesh played a key role in the formation of such an inter-governmental organisation whose task is to reduce poverty and accelerate the pace of rural development in the region through collective efforts. Secretaries of the government are the members of the EC and Bangladesh's rural development and cooperative secretary Hedayetul Islam Chowdhury was unanimously elected as the vice-chairperson of the EC meeting. our staff correspondent adds: Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan will leave for Jakarta tonight to attend the 14th meeting of the Governing Council (GC-14) of Centre for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP). The two-day ministerial meeting on strategies and programmes for rural development will be inaugurated by Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri at 10:00am on Monday at the Indonesian State Palace. Rural development planners and policymakers of countries of the Asia-Pacific region will attend the meeting. Thirteen ministers in charge of rural development and agriculture, all GC-14 members, will discuss strategies to alleviate rural poverty in the region, official sources said. The GC-14 meeting will be preceded by a two-day meeting of the CIRDAP's Executive Committee comprising secretaries of rural development departments of the 13-member countries. Official sources said Mannan Bhuiyan, who is also the secretary general of BNP, will call on President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Monday to discuss bilateral and regional issues. He will also meet several Indonesian ministers, ministers from participant countries and CIRDAP high officials during his stay in Jakarta. Tareque Rahman, first joint secretary general of BNP, will be the acting secretary general of the party during Mannan Bhuiyan's absence. Bhuiyan is expected to return on August 30.
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