Professor Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, delivers a historic address at the 80th United Nations General Assembly, giving voice to the July Uprising’s spirit and presenting Bangladesh as a beacon of resilience, justice, and global conscience.”
A Watershed in the History of Bangladesh and the World
When Nobel Peace Laureate and caretaker government Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed the podium of the 80th United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2025, the event bore a symbolism far bigger than protocol. It wasn’t a cynical reading from the teleprompter again; it was a people’s voice born out of despair, uttered by one whose working life had been marked by integrity, social imagination, and unwavering commitment to human dignity.
In a cynically weary world of empty words and doublespeak politics, Yunus was an exception. His standing as the “banker to the poor,” the founder of microcredit, and architect of social business gave his words a specific moral authority. While politicians derive authority from office or from exercising power, Yunus derives power from credibility—credibility not established in the marble halls of politics, but in the villages of Bangladesh, from ordinary citizens whose lives he has transformed.
His address came at a time of reckoning: the 80th anniversary of the UN Charter, a time as much of reminiscence as resolve. And Yunus used it to remind the world of Bangladesh, which had long been written off as powerless and voiceless,
Lessons from History: The Struggle for Rights
Repeated steps highlight Bangladesh’s history of justice and human rights. The Liberation War of 1971 was just as much a question of liberation as of equality, dignity, and social justice. But the following decades remained short of such aspirations. Military dictatorships, civilian authoritarian dictators, and systematic human rights abuses compelled citizens to struggle repeatedly to reclaim freedoms in people’s movements and street battles.
The July 2024 Uprising fits perfectly into the narrative. In the same way that the 1952 student action gave rise to the Language Movement, or the democratic movements of 1990, the youths were at the forefront. They put an end to Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year-long autocracy that had turned state institutions into instruments of terror. Yunus reminded the Assembly that Bangladesh’s past is not one of continual advancement, but rather one of successive perseverance. Each time rights had been taken away, people—scared by nothing but memory and courage—kept them. That is why Bangladesh’s lesson resonates globally: it shows that the arc of history, if often deferred, bends toward justice when citizens demand it.
Reform by Consensus, Not Diktats
Transitional regimes are also susceptible to the bait of decree rule. Most countries newly emancipated from authoritarian rule introduce top-down reforms that often disintegrate as soon as a new political system has been established. Yunus noted that Bangladesh had deliberately avoided this shortcut. Its regime, instead, developed 11 independent commissions—on governance, judiciary, electoral reform, anti-corruption, law enforcement, women’s rights, and others—mandated to sort out intricately detailed proposals through public consultations.
Most significantly, over 30 political parties and coalitions supported the July Declaration of 2025, a comprehensive list of reforms that makes institutional changes irreversible by future governments. This is similar to South Africa’s post-apartheid broad-based consensus or Chile’s post-Pinochet reforms, where broad-based national compacts anchored democracy permanently. For Bangladesh, it is not just a political achievement, but a historic guarantee: no government will again be able to use democracy as a means of repression against its people.
Human Rights and International Standards
Bangladesh has been one of the most maligned nations in global human rights fora, especially regarding enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings, and muzzling dissent. Having had the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit and allowing a three-year OHCHR mission, the Yunus government turned the narrative from denial to engagement.
Accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture demonstrates a commitment to international standards, and the making of national law today seeks to commit these to enforceable domestic promises. There can be few transitional governments anywhere in the world that have proceeded so rapidly to enmesh protection of rights into the legal order. Yunus provided this as a debt to the past, so that the excesses of the toppled government shall never come back to haunt us again.
Economic Reforms: Turning Corruption to Stability
The collapse of the old regime exposed an economy ravaged not just by the shock of outsiders but by decades of corruption, illegal capital flows, and entrenched crony capitalism. Tens of billions of dollars were siphoned out of Bangladesh through illicit channels, often under the guise of loopholes in the global financial architecture that facilitate illegal flows from the developing to the developed world. For ordinary citizens—farmers, garment factory workers, and small entrepreneurs—this meant increased inequality, inflation, and distrust of institutions. It is here that Professor Muhammad Yunus placed asset recovery and structural reform at the forefront of his economic agenda, echoing the broader Global South’s call that stolen assets must be recovered and returned to their rightful owners.
The government, for the first time in Bangladesh’s history, separated revenue policy-making from implementation to ensure that the same hand could no longer guide legislation and raise taxes in a manner susceptible to abuse. This aligns with international best practices for ensuring transparency and accountability in taxation administration.
To break the chain of rent-seeking in government spending, the government made electronic tendering compulsory for all government purchases. Through disclosure via digital means and third-party monitoring, e-tendering successfully filled the gaps through which padding of contracts and political patronage had previously thrived. The World Bank estimates that procurement corruption drains developing economies of as much as 30% of public spending; the Bangladesh reform is plugging that very leakage of money.
The sector, which has traditionally been plagued by politically motivated lending and bad loans, also underwent a thorough review. Asset quality reviews, a proposed Deposit Protection Ordinance, and a new framework for Bank Resolution were initiated by the government to rescue problem banks without alarming depositors. All the initiatives are in accordance with global post-2008 financial reforms and are directed at protecting the ordinary citizen from the collapse of politically connected banks.
Capital markets, previously marred by manipulation scandals, have been enhanced by increased supervision and the establishment of specialized commercial courts. The speedy resolution of disputes through these systems helps recover investor confidence and alleviates the previously chronic backlog of cases, discouraging local and foreign players from entering the market.
Bangladesh has attempted to simplify and secure investment in the meantime. The Bangladesh Single Window, which is operational with 19 regulatory agencies already on board, has simplified customs procedures and enhanced trade logistics. An FDI Heatmap places high-value areas, such as renewable energy, semiconductors, and digital services, at the very top, providing foreign investors with a clear direction and assurance. Reforms are further supplemented by the creation of a National Semiconductor Task Force, propelling Bangladesh into the global supply chain of a sector central to its future growth.
Collectively, these steps align with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, aiming to foster transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness in financial stewardship. Yet, Yunus has gone on to warn the international community that reforms, although long needed, are half-hearted as long as rich nations continue to facilitate illegal financial flows through the use of tax havens and secret banking. In the absence of international cooperation, he felt, countries like Bangladesh will always do only half the task.
By defining corruption and illicit transfers as not only country-specific problems but also as a global crime, Yunus has elevated Bangladesh from the status of a client state to that of a moral champion of global financial justice. In doing so, Bangladesh has joined the ranks of countries such as Nigeria, which successfully recovered the Abacha loot, and Kenya, which is advocating for stronger anti-money laundering safeguards. This puts Bangladesh on a growing list of nations demanding a more balanced economic order—one in which the wealth of the poor can no longer be locked away forever in the coffers of the rich.
Youth and Social Innovation: The Three Zeros Vision
Since more than 60 percent of Bangladeshis are younger than 35 years old, the country’s strongest asset is not its natural gas reserves or its irrigated land, but its youth. The July 2024 Uprising showed us the political power of this generation—restive, fearless, and not ready to accept a malfunctioning system as their legacy. The task of the Prof. Muhammad Yunus government is to channel that unbridled energy into positive leadership, policy reform, and mobilization to achieve concrete progress.
To that end, Yunus launched the development of a youth policy platform in collaboration with the United Nations to connect grassroots issues directly with policymakers. Through online and offline consultations, the movement ensures that young citizens are heard and provided with opportunities to co-decide what will shape their future—from education and employment to climate resilience and digital connectivity. It recognizes the youth as not merely recipients of state policy, but as co-architects of the nation’s future.
This vision is driven by Yunus’s life philosophy of social business, which he conceived after the global success of microcredit. Unlike conventional companies, whose profits are distributed to shareholders, social enterprises reinvest their profits entirely to address social issues. The model is already revolutionary: in the US alone, Grameen America lends more than $4 billion annually to low-income women entrepreneurs, with repayment rates exceeding 90 percent. Bangladesh’s potential is vast. If scaled up nationwide, social business can address some of the most pressing challenges, such as climate resilience, health access, and youth unemployment, and enable entrepreneurship at the grassroots level.
This commitment is entirely consistent with Yunus’s overall Three Zeros agenda, which is a moral and pragmatic vision for the 21st century. First, Zero Carbon Emissions addresses the very survival crisis that climate change presents, ensuring that economic prosperity is not won at the cost of environmental catastrophe. Second, Zero Wealth Concentration is a call for economic justice at a time when global inequality has worsened more than during the Gilded Age. The third, Zero Unemployment, envisions a world where everyone can make a productive contribution, not only as an employment-seeker but also as an employment creator.
They are not utopian slogans, but realizable objectives founded on Bangladesh’s reality and global trends. In a century marked by climatic disasters, increasing inequality, and jobless growth, Yunus’s Three Zeros offer an alternative moral pathway. They rely upon a conception of development that combines innovation and justice, growth and equality, and technology and humanness. Fundamentally, this blueprint has the capacity to transform Bangladesh into a global model for youth-led social innovation—and one for other nations confronting similar challenges.
Climate Justice and Global Responsibility
Bangladesh remains at the epicenter of the climate crisis, with its rising sea levels, salinity intrusion, and extreme weather events. Yunus complained about the non-disbursement of the $100 billion annually pledged climate finance and exposed the pattern of exaggerating minuscule disbursement figures in donor reporting. Bangladesh’s efforts include its third Nationally Determined Contribution, which emphasizes mangrove conservation, the rehabilitation of wetlands, and locally led adaptation—a model being replicated around the globe.
In demanding operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund, Yunus joined the broader Global South demand for climate justice. It was a voice of moral imperative: “For the future of our children, we must act immediately.”
Regional Diplomacy: The Rohingya Crisis and Beyond
The nearly one million Rohingya refugees’ crisis remains Bangladesh’s most pressing humanitarian crisis. Yunus warned of rationing reductions to bare-bones $6 monthly per capita due to WFP budget shortfalls—an untenable position with dire security implications. He appealed to donors to contribute more and pressured Myanmar and Rakhine’s non-state actors to reverse discriminatory policies against the Rohingya.
Bangladesh also called for the rejuvenation of SAARC, expressed interest in being a part of ASEAN, and discovered initiatives such as BIMSTEC and SASEC for increased connectivity. Bangladesh was the initial South Asian nation to embrace a collaborative framework for shared natural resources by acceding to the UN Water Convention—exhibiting a diplomacy of equity and empathy.
Gaza and the Moral Imperative
The most poignant and descriptive part of the speech came when Professor Muhammad Yunus strayed from his typical optimism to present the harsh reality of Gaza to the Assembly. His voice, stern but serious, stated that what the world was witnessing was nothing short of a genocide taking place before their eyes. He drew the picture of apocalypse: emaciated children perishing, schools and hospitals brought down to dust, entire city blocks eliminated from the face of the earth with no discrimination between fighter and civilian.
A subdued silence followed this, then a rustle of agreement. Delegates from around the Global South nodded their heads in comprehension, sensing in what he said a reality which many had not felt bold enough to say so frankly from the UN podium. Then came his ultimatum—categorical, unyielding, and met with intermittent applause that rose to a broader show of welcome: the instant establishment of the two-state solution, based firmly on pre-1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. Only then, he asserted, could justice be served and peace ensue.
In saying so bluntly, Yunus aligned Bangladesh not only with the Arab and Muslim worlds, but with humanity’s conscience. His words reminded the Assembly that indifference to suffering anywhere undermines justice everywhere. At that time, his voice was not only the voice of Bangladesh but the voice of millions of people everywhere who believed themselves abandoned by great-power politics. The standing ovation that followed was both a tribute to his bravery and a blessed splash of moral insight in a hall all too often dulled by diplomatic caution.
Women, Equity, and Social Justice
From the ashes of Gaza, Yunus progressed to a subject closer to Bangladesh’s national story: empowering women. Again, his words were heavy, but they were met with applause, appreciation, and acknowledgment, especially from delegations working on gender equality fronts.
Bangladesh, he asserted with gentle pride, had published its first Unpaid Household Production Satellite Account, a South Asian first. The numbers were astronomical: women perform more than 85 percent of unpaid care and household work, valued at over 16 percent of the nation’s GDP. The years of this work, which were required to survive economically and as families, were not captured in official statistics. By quantifying it, Bangladesh had put a value on what the nation’s poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam, long put into rhyme: “Whatever in this world is great, whatever is good and everlasting, half of it has been created by woman, and the other half by man.” His declaration of the words from the rostrum had loosed a wave of applause which gathered momentum as delegates understood the symbolism.
Yunus subsequently made four new national promises to the Beijing+30 Action Agenda, each of which was greeted with new applause: a law to prevent and protect against sexual harassment; valuing and recognizing women’s unpaid care work; improved spaces for women’s participation in political and public life; and an enforced mechanism for gender-responsive budgeting. These commitments, he emphasized, were not symbolic but rather institutional reforms aimed at putting equality at the heart of governance.
Bangladesh’s track record in this regard is behind them. Women have been at the helm of their politics, from grassroots leaders to government chiefs, for decades. They also form the backbone of the country’s garment industry, which powers its exports and employs millions. Yunus mentioned how women entrepreneurs in the microcredit revolution had already begun transforming villages into economic centers. Now, with these new policies in place, he predicted that women would move more fully into national decision-making roles, as well as in science, technology, and diplomacy. The spontaneous applause that erupted at this point in his speech was not so much for the success of Bangladesh itself, but for the hope that its lesson could encourage others. The delegates were aware that in a world still suffering from gender imbalance, a country that had once been characterised as one of the poorest was showing others the way out of the darkness.
In the second-to-last turn of his address, Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed a topic that was reverberating far beyond Bangladesh: the growing frailty of multilateralism.
He began by recognizing the United Nations’ eight decades of unparalleled success—nourishing over 130 million hungry people in 120 countries, immunizing nearly half of the world’s children, and delivering humanitarian aid to millions of people in immediate need of food, water, and shelter. Such achievement, Yunus emphasized, is an example of what is possible when states choose cooperation over confrontation. However, he warned that this spirit of collaboration is severely under strain today.
Increasing unilateralism by major powers, which pushes international organizations to the side to pursue narrow self-interest, has unraveled collective problem-solving. Protectionism in trade is dismantling decades of progress that had allowed nearly a billion people to escape poverty. And hyper-nationalism, driven by disinformation and virtual echo chambers, is about to rip societies apart and countries against themselves. These steps, Yunus cautioned, threaten to reverse the very gains humanity has made after decades of complex multilateral diplomacy. Bangladesh itself is all too well aware of what is at play.
As one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, its survival depends on global coordination to restrict emissions, provide climate finance, and establish the Loss and Damage Fund. Similarly, as the second victim of the Rohingya tragedy after the Rohingya themselves, Bangladesh is all too well cognizant of refugee protection and political solutions not being guaranteed by bilateral but requiring multilateral decision-making. To this end, Yunus highlighted the acceptance of the Secretary-General’s UN80 initiative, which aims to revive the vision of the United Nations on its 80th anniversary.
But he made one huge condition: reform must not dilute the UN’s fundamental mission, nor silence the voice of the developing world to a whisper. Institutional reform has all too often been driven by the interests of powerful nations, pushing small and poor countries into the cold. To make multilateralism function, Yunus demanded, reforms must be inclusive, transparent, and focused on actual change on the ground. He reminded the Assembly that the majority of UN members come from the developing world.
But theirs are too often silenced in decision-making—on world finance, security, or trade. If reforms mute those voices rather than amplify them, the legitimacy of multilateral institutions will be lost. This is why Bangladesh joined the Global South in calling for the democratization of global institutions—from the UN Security Council, which still operates according to the geopolitics of 1945, to the IMF and World Bank, whose voting rights are still grossly weighted in favor of the developed world. For Yunus, the multilateral crisis is not high-flying diplomacy but a harsh reality with real-time implications for ordinary folks. A weakened UN means reduced funding for climate adaptation, delayed responses to refugee crises, and fewer brakes on human rights violations. An international order in shambles would trap smaller countries like Bangladesh, forcing them to bleed on the battlefield of great power rivalry without the protection of international norms.
By framing multilateralism as both a moral and a practical necessity, Yunus had depicted Bangladesh not as a witness but as a trustee of the global order. His message was succinct: unless the world re-commits to collaboration, then humanity itself stands in danger of plunging into an age in which power trumps right, and when weak states and people are helpless.
Conclusion: Bangladesh as a Moral Compass
Professor Muhammad Yunus concluded his speech with a reminder that would linger long after the hall emptied: the July Uprising of 2024 demonstrated that injustice cannot last, that tyranny cannot be absolute, and that ordinary citizens standing together as one can take back control of history. What erupted in the streets of Dhaka was not a mere regime change, but a moral awakening—a shared insistence that democracy, dignity, and accountability must guide the future. His vision of a Three Zero World—zero carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration, and zero unemployment is no pipe dream. It is a survival plan for the century already besmirched by climate collapse, grotesque inequality, and increasing polarization. For Yunus, they are not aspirations for the future but present needs, founded on social innovation and energized by youth.
At the United Nations, Bangladesh thus stood not as a beggar nation in sympathy but as a country offering lessons in resilience, innovation, and compassion. In a world where great powers often oscillate between hubris and insensitivity, Bangladesh, under Yunus, has taken a different path: to dream, to dare, and to lead with heart. The lasting message of his speech was clearly articulated: a small country can look back to the world and say that moral courage and the people’s voice can illuminate the way forward—now Bangladesh, previously ridiculed as weak, now proclaims itself as a moral beacon to the world. And in Yunus’s own words, the vision of a just, equal, and sustainable tomorrow ceases to be the right of the elite—it is the birthright of all.