The Poverty Alleviation Projects of the Large NGOs
The history of NGOs in Bangladesh can be traced way back to the British colonial period. Since the British era, NGOs in its traditional form have been working in Bangladesh as different religious trust-based schools,
hospitals and orphanages. However, NGOs in Bangladesh got a radical transformation and turned into agents of
development in the post-independence era.
GOB had to face a Herculean task of renewal and reconstruction of the war torn economy immediately after its
war of independence. The GOB had neither the capacity nor had the appropriate institutional mechanism to
address the volume and diversity of such enormous problems single handed. At that point of time, a number of
international NGOs and voluntary organizations extended their helping hands to assist Bangladesh in its striving
efforts to rebuild the infrastructure and the economy. Thus, the decade of 1970s witnessed the emergence of
several local NGOs and also the arrival of several International NGOs in Bangladesh.
Since 1970s NGOs therefore become a part of the institutional framework of poverty alleviation in Bangladesh.
The NGOs, especially the large ones in effect, have infiltrated into an operational arena which has traditionally
been the `exclusive domain' of the government. Donors have played a significant role in advocating for the
NGOs as an active partner in poverty alleviation projects in Bangladesh (Sobhan and Bhattacharya,1990).
Though GOB does not have a clear and comprehensive policy framework on the role of NGOs but different
bilateral as well as multi-lateral donors somehow very strongly have made it more or less obligatory to
Bangladesh to opt for NGOs as a second channel for organization and management of PAPs. As a result several
donors are channelling substantially higher amount of resources through the NGOs. The proportion of total
foreign aid to Bangladesh disbursed through NGOs was about 1 per cent only in 1972-73 which by the end of FY
1986-87, reached to 17.4 per cent (Abed, 1984; Alam, 1988; Alam 1993).
The donors, frustrated and disillusioned by their attempts to work with conventional line agencies of the
government, have supported the NGOs at the risk of displeasing the Government with assumption that the NGOs
are efficient and committed, deliver services through targeted programs with transparency and accountability
(World Bank, 1990). This redirection of donor funds has resulted in considerable expansion of the programs of
the large NGOs as well as of their organizational capacity. In fact by the middle of the 1980s it was estimated
that the staff of NGOs would have exceeded more than three times of that of Bangladesh Rural Development
Board - the sole governmental body specifically assigned to address rural development and poverty alleviation
program in Bangladesh. By the end of the 1980s the constituency of BRAC, Proshika and Grameen Bank , three
leading national NGOs/ non-government rural credit institutions , accounted to around one million members. An
estimate made by the Association of Development Agencies of Bangladesh (ADAB), claims that the leading
NGOs have already been able to serve one-tenth of the country's 120 million people (ADAB, 1993).
Some leading NGOs by now have developed into large professional organizations and acquired the capacity to
provide more effective services. Their role in development is primarily advocated for five considerations
(Streefland, 1993): their ability and effectiveness to act as brokers between the needs of the rural poor and the
objectives of donor policies; their efficiency in reaching the poor; their innovative potential; their reliability and
efficiency in providing emergency aid to people afflicted by natural disasters; and their ability to provide
sufficient organizational support to the needy and poor.
Most of the NGOs in Bangladesh at the beginning focussed their attention on `consciousness raising' aspect at
the grassroots levels through mobilizing and forming groups among the poor, initiating a process of people's
collective analysis on their present situation, helping them to see the strength in their numbers and gradually
inspiring the poor to undertake continuous social and economic actions in order to change the existing dominantdependent
relationship between them and the rich. By multiplying such grass-roots groups and developing
networks among those multiplied groups, it was argued by the NGOs that the poor would emerge as a
Poverty Alleviation in Bangladesh
11countervailing power to the wealthy, with necessary strength for future social transformation.
Later during the late 1970s the pure conscientization approach has been largely abandoned. A new set of
assumptions were drawn by some leading NGOs. These are: (ADB,1993)
1. The absorptive capacity and self-reliance of the poor can be developed only progressively.
2. As result of combination of general scarcity of government resources and the capacity of the existing elite
to capture the major share of government services, "the barriers to entry" as faced by the poor are much
greater than what originally believed.
3. Provided certain precautions are taken, it is possible to render essential services to the poor without
jeopardizing their sense of self-reliance.
Thus from early 1980s most NGOs have opted for multi-sectoral projects primarily emphasizing the rural
employment and income generating activities for the disadvantaged and poor. Empirical evidence indicate that a
good number of NGOs have set standards of efficient delivery systems with substantial legitimacy from the
community (Aminuzzaman; 1993).
Some significant factors can be identified which may have been responsible for relative success of the NGOs
(Khan,1986; Rahman, 1985; Alam, 1988; Alam, 1993):
1. NGOs have been able to effectively organize the rural poor with similar socio-economic background
and made them more conscious of their own potentials that the local power elites do not take advantage
of them.
2. NGOs have also shown that the poor people are bankable if properly organized. There has to be a
strong saving component in the credit program for the poor. It is the "group pressure" which has been
used for both "motivation" as well as "self-discipline".
3. The NGOs have complemented credit program with conscientization as well as training. It is the
change in attitude which ensures high repayment of loans and group cohesiveness.
4. NGOs have also successfully blended the credit components with appropriate technology.
Empirical evidence also indicates that NGOs are more innovative than government agencies when it comes to
assisting the rural poor. Moreover: i. NGOs are more flexible in their approaches; ii. usually have better and
intimate knowledge of local conditions which shape the outcome of a development activity; iii. NGOs have a
higher degree of capacity to reach the intended target groups and tend to maintain close contact with the poor;
and iv. NGOs in general are committed as well as willing to spend more time experimenting to the extent that
they are not under pressure to disburse credit funds and are committed to a long-term involvement.
Limitations of the NGOs
NGOs in Bangladesh have increasingly become subject to questions and criticisms. Their roles, functions and
long-term objectives have been questioned by the Government, political parties, intellectuals and public in
general (Sobhan, 1982). Most NGOs with increasing availability of donor funds, tend to undertake programs
which are determined by, and devoted with, donors' demand and expectation. Such programs may have only
"little relevance to the critical needs and aspirations of the beneficiaries and may be far drawn away from their
stated long-term objectives and strategies" (Task Force,1991: 379). Some left-leaning political parties criticize
the NGOs for taking funds from western donors and serve their interests in a way to fulfill their objectives of
subverting the process of politicization and social revolution. Due to the lack of planning and or institutional
framework and support, some NGOs especially the smaller ones, in effect, addressed the problems of poverty
mostly on "adhoc" basis and developed a condition of perpetual dependency. Studies have also shown that some
NGOs are found to be inefficient managers of resources and are trying to implement a diverse set of programs
requiring a managerial competence for integration beyond their existing capacities (ADB, 1993).
12
Evaluation reports of some NGO sponsored programs indicate that they do not have comprehensive plans for
sustainability of their projects. This leads to the main criticism against the NGOs is that they tend to become
"paternalist" about their clients by continuously investing in the same beneficiaries instead of setting time targets
for their graduation from poverty. The sustainability and replicability of NGO programs on a long-term basis
become difficult for the high unit operation costs. Available data suggest that major (large) national and
international NGOs usually have a larger operating cost per group member than its comparable government
administered poverty alleviation programs (UNDP,1988).
A UNDP sponsored study has made a thorough analysis of the NGO sponsored development programs in rural
Bangladesh. The study noted that some of the NGOs have gross institutional limitations and have not been costeffective.
Major observations drawn by the UNDP study are as follows (UNDP;1988):
1. The credit policy pursued by the NGOs comes only as a complementary component of a wider
consciousness raising program. It is said that the credit is given only after some time has elapsed and
that, too, is of small amounts. While NGOs argue that too much dependence on credit may distract the
poor from their human development, it can also be argued that people can not survive on
"consciousness" alone. They have abundant labor and if that can be matched by capital, they can be selfemployed.
So NGOs, in fact, slow down the pace of the development of the poor by withholding credit
for longer periods of time.
2. NGOs are heavily dependent on foreign resources. In the absence of accountability, too much money
from outside can make the NGOs corrupt, controversial and bureaucratic.
3. NGOs, despite a decade of their existence, have not made much dent. It is easy to show remarkable
success in a village or two with small projects, but it may not be possible to replicate these successes
throughout the country.
4. NGOs lack legitimacy and political leverage, hence they are ineffective in running big projects that
would affect significant number of rural poor.
Another study has summarized the critical issues related to NGOs in Bangladesh ( Aminuzzaman, 1994):
i. There is no clear-cut GOB policy on the role and functional coverage of the NGOs in Bangladesh.
Whatever guidelines are there, these seem to be ambiguous and contradictory;
ii. There is a general feeling of mistrust among the members of the public bureaucracy towards the
NGOs;
iii. Most of the NGOs alleged to have no long term plan which results in designing projects that
generates temporary benefits than tangible long term impacts. iv. There is a noticeable lack of coordination among the NGO projects resulting in duplication and
wastage of NGO resources and efforts.
v. There are reports of lack of coordination between the NGOs and the local government bodies as well
as the field level bureaucracy of the national government;
vi. In many cases NGOs have faced resistance from the local interest groups.
vii. NGOs in general have become more and more dependent on donor support and have failed tomobilize local resources. A number of the NGOs have to abandon their projects due to lack of
Institution building from development management perspective refers to a system that functions in relation to their environments in which organizational structures and procedures match the tasks, products, people, resources and the contexts it deals with. Institution building is intimately concerned with the exchange of resources where economic and political relationships intertwine to create varying patterns of implementation network and intervention packages (Gustafson, 1994; Brinkerhoff & Goldsmith, 1992; Ahmed 1992). Like many other developing countries, Bangladesh has undertaken various efforts for improving the socio-economic conditions of the poor through institution building approach. However, several issues like national and scrotal policies, inter-agency coordination, and structural requirements have hampered the institution building efforts geared to address poverty and under-development. This paper attempts to make an overview of different institutional frameworks and assess their managerial effectiveness to address poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. The paper is based on content analysis of different secondary sources of data and information. Observations are also drawn from several interview sessions. During the interview a number of Donors officials reminded this researcher that some reports should be treated as `confidential' and `sensitive' on the grounds that they have not been accepted by Government of Bangladesh (GOB). Due to the `confidential' nature of some of the materials, a number of documents cannot be referred to or quoted in this paper. Since the beginning of 1970s; Bangladesh has virtually become a laboratory for design and experimentation of different rural development models and approaches. Different agencies of Government of Bangladesh (GOB),international donors and the Non-government Organizations 1 (NGOs) have experimented with different model sand approaches of institution building for rural and local level development (Holtsberg, 1990). The goals, objectives and strategies for implementation of these experimental approaches, however, varied depending on the sponsor of the projects. But the alleviation of poverty has always been one of the core objectives of those experimental approaches. In spite of all these different institutional and experimental interventions over the years, alleviation of poverty still remains a major challenge for Bangladesh (Jahan, 1991). Given the present trends in population and economic growth and the absence of a concerted plan of action at poverty alleviation, experts fear that poverty scenario in Bangladesh would be even worse in the years to come (GOB 1991, SAARC,1992, BIDS, 1993).
