Employment Seminar Series

Skills Development and the Future of Work in Bangladesh

This seminar provided a platform to exchange lessons learned on skills development and discuss policy responses by the Government of Bangladesh in the context of the Future of Work.

- Presenter: Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor at a2i – Innovate for All, Government of Bangladesh
- Discussant: Srinivas Reddy, Chief, SKILLS
- Chair: Sukti Dasgupta, Chief, EMPLAB

The world of work is undergoing major structural changes driven by technology, demography, climate change and globalization. In Bangladesh, policy makers need to find solutions to equip a growing workforce, especially young women and men, with skills to navigate within a changing world of work and to promote decent work in both local industries and international markets. a2i - Innovate for All of the Government of Bangladesh is working with a whole-of-society approach by bringing innovations in the skills eco-system, promoting industry-driven apprenticeships in both formal and informal sectors, and promoting digital entrepreneurship, including in the rural economy. 

Anir Chowdhury
Anir Chowdhury is the Policy Advisor of UNDP and USAID-supported Access to Information Program, Prime Minister's Office, Bangladesh. In this capacity, he leads the formation of an innovation ecosystem in Bangladesh Civil Service through massive capacity development, policy formulation, institutional reform and a Service Innovation Fund. His work on innovation in public service has developed interesting and replicable models of service delivery decentralization, public-private partnerships and transformation of a traditional bureaucracy into a forward-looking, citizen-centric service provider. Anir is a member of the Prime Minister’s National Digital Task Force, Education Minister’s National ICT in Education Task Force, and Planning Minister’s National Information Management Committee. In his twenty-two-year career, he co-founded several software and service companies in the US and Bangladesh focused on enterprise management and IT strategy for Fortune 500 corporations. He also co-founded a number of non-profit organizations focused on ICT4D, e-learning and open source technologies. Anir graduated magna cum laude in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Brown and did post-graduate work on management, marketing and education reform in Boston University, Harvard and Columbia. His interests include co-creation of e- and m-services, crowdsourcing, education reform, wide-scale adoption of open source and open content, public-private partnerships and youth development.