The Resilience and Sustainable Development Programme (RSDP) is pleased to announce a new report on Industry 4.0 and National Skill Development Policy in Bangladesh. The report, funded by the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, uses the RSDP’s policy simulation lab framework and details the outcomes of a one-year (2018-19) pilot project.

The project’s objectives were to:

1. Demonstrate the importance of systems thinking for the application of policy-making
   
   
2. Apply systems thinking in developing joined-up policy options for the National Skill Development Policy (NSDP) in response to Industry 4.0
   
   
3. Establish the Bangabandhu-Cambridge Research framework between the University of Cambridge and the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Policy recommendations

The policy recommendations that were generated by the exercise were and stress tested by senior decision-makers from six major ministries and three multilateral agencies. Below are three system level recommendations that were officially submitted to the government of Bangladesh for further consideration for implementation. These are:

• Systematic integration of professional training for NSDP officers in systems thinking. Being equitable and inclusive at the institutional level requires transferable skills. There should be systematic funding support for training in systems level integration and innovative policy design.
  
  
• Developing national employment insurance scheme for the low-skilled labour. Producing broad-based benefits for those who are at highest risk will smooth out the negative impacts (social security and resilience). There has been ongoing discussion on this at the national level. Participants made suggestions on how to de-risk the insurance scheme, designed systems with scale in mind to improve opportunity for investments.
  
  
• Identifying employment opportunities within the sustainable and fair global marketplace to improve national image. Each of the policy designs took account of the reputation of Bangladesh. Part of protecting reputation is maintaining peace and productivity. Peace was related to how to reduce political distrust and improve policy productivity. One such pragmatic proposal was a time management scheme to improve feedback and policy implementation Time management training, coupled with software support could generating positive and transferable capacities for individual decision makers.

For more information, please contact Dr Nazia M Habib, Founding Director of the RSDP, at nsh29@cam.ac.uk