According to a message received here, the Unicef officials and donors also praised Bangladesh's achievement and progress in child welfare and some related key social areas.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to United Nations, was present on the occasion, and made a statement describing Unicef-government cooperation as a "model worthy of emulation".

He sought cooperation of the donors in the funding of the programme. The board has been requested to approve a budget of 60,490,000 US dollar from regular resources, subject to availability and 210,000,000 US dollar in other resources. Donors like Sweden, Japan and UK made interventions.

Iftekhar, however, pointed to the menace posed by arsenic contamination of drinking water which is threatening over 35 million people.

He urged redoubling of efforts to tackle this problem. Celcilia Lotse, director of Unicef for South Asia Region who introduced the country programme, assured that this issue is receiving top priority.

Ann Veneman, new Executive Director of Unicef, who recently succeeded Carol Bellamy was present at the discussion.