A leading Bangladeshi woman scientist was today nominated by the UN as member of a panel to assess functions of forming a technology bank to help the world's least developed countries come out of poverty.
Firdausi Qadri is currently the director of the Centre for Vaccine Sciences at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.
She is in the 10-member panel which would be chaired by Rwanda's Romain Murenzi, currently Executive Director of the World Academy of Sciences in Trieste of Italy.
"United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced the formation of a High-Level Panel to study the scope and functions of a proposed new technology bank. The bank will be dedicated to helping the least developed countries (LDCs) emerge out of poverty," a UN statement said.
The panel is to advise on the organisational and operational aspects of the planned "technology bank and science, technology and innovation supporting mechanism".
"The Secretary-General has asked the High-Level Panel to prepare practical recommendations on this important matter which can provide a strong impetus to accelerating structural transformation and sustainable development of the LDCs," a UN spokesperson said in a statement.
He said the panel was constituted in response to a request to the Secretary-General by the UN General Assembly during its 68th session.
The panel will hold its first meeting in February 2015 and is expected to submit its report to the Secretary-General during the summer of next year.
Qadri, a specialist of immunology and infectious disease, was awarded last year the CNR Rao Prize, by the world academy of sciences for "the advancement of science in developing countries".
Bangladesh Academy of Sciences earlier in 2008 honoured her with a gold medal for contribution to her field of studies while in 2012 she was awarded the Christophe Merieux Prize for her research on infectious enteric diseases, a scourge in developing countries.
