Continuous donor support.

Continuous donor support.

 

viii. Most national NGOs are poorly staffed and fail to retain professionals for longer period.

What ever the case may be, NGOs have become a strong institutional framework of development management in

Bangladesh. The donors time and again emphasized the importance of the extended role of the NGOs in

Bangladesh. Major Donors particularly the World Bank suggest that an expansion of the existing Government

program to generate employment for the landless and rural poor is unlikely to provide a solution due to the

institutional constraints particularly that of the BRDB. World Bank and other donors strongly suggested that

successful NGOs who have gained much experience in assisting the rural poor through employment and income

generation activities should be encouraged to expand as a supplement to the Government's own efforts in poverty

alleviation.

The main question which needs to be examined in this context is that of the future role of the large successful

NGOs. They are all providing essential social services which traditionally fall within the purview of services

provided by Government. From this point of view, the NGOs have setup operations parallel to the Government.

In some cases there are reports that at the field level GOB functionaries have become hostile towards the NGOs

and maintain an ambivalent attitude towards the NGOs. NGOs also cautiously avoided institutional interactions

with the Local Government bodies (Aminuzzaman, 1993). This may create a situation of `no government' at local

level which in the long run would inevitably affect the already weak local bodies in rural Bangladesh

(Aminuzzaman, 1993a).

The NGOs in Bangladesh are caught up in the tension between their role as mere humanitarian service providers

and their social objective to bring about mobilization of the target group against existing oppressive and

exploitative socio-political power relations (RDRS; 1991). The choice they are facing at present is not an easy

one. The GOB has not made sufficient progress in terms of becoming a provider of essential social services.

Given the enormous expansion of their operations and the greater need of the masses of the poor for their

services, the option of enlisting NGOs as authorized Government contractors for the delivery of social services

(e.g. education, health) has become pressing. From discussions with the leading national NGOs this researcher

gathered that some of the NGOs have chosen to follow this option. It remains to be seen how the large NGOs can

reconcile such a strategy with their second objective of politically mobilizing the masses of the poor.

IV. Collaboration between NGOs and GOB line agencies

Another emerging model in PAP is the collaboration between the GOB line agencies and the NGOs, which one

study notes as a "promising alternative institutional approach to poverty alleviation" (Hossain, A, 1995). This

approach seeks to combine the extensive experience of NGOs in group formation, awareness raising, human

resource development and income generating activities with the large scale capacity of GOB line agencies to

deliver inputs of technical expertise and resources. In contrast to institution and capacity building efforts from

within GOB agencies, the expected benefits from this arrangement is that, the capacity would be injected from

outside and below. In other words, the local knowledge, human resource development expertise, motivation and

enthusiasm of NGO staff are expected to have a `demonstration effect' on GOB staff by way of their interaction

with each other. And, more important perhaps, the insistent and articulate demands from well organized groups

mobilized by the NGOs are also expected to stimulate the responsiveness and commitment of local GOB staff,

who are used to being faced with mostly a non-challenging and passive target group.

Model Collaborative Projects

By now some collaborative projects between different ministries/ directorates (like Health, Relief and Livestock)

with leading NGOs like CARE International and BRAC have produced notable demonstration effect. In 1985,

BRAC entered into an agreement with the Ministry of Relief and became an implementing partner of the VGD

14

program. On an experimental basis, BRAC took the responsibility of distributing the food and other logistic

supports to the destitute women. BRAC also assumed the responsibility of imparting skill based training to the

women groups in four different functional skills i.e.: poultry, vegetable cultivation, sericulture and embroidery.

Based on the initial positive impact of the collaboration, BRAC further designed a new program called Income

Generation for Vulnerable Group Development Program (IGVGDP). IGVGDP in effect was a collaboration

project of the World Food Program (WFP), Department of Relief and Rehabilitation (DRR), Department of

Livestock (DLS) and BRAC to improve the income earning potential of destitute women who are VGD members.

The program aimed at providing skills training and other support over a period of two years when the VGD

women are supported by the wheat ration supplied by WFP. Under the extended program BRAC has been

responsible for motivation, group formation, training and supply of inputs to the VGD members. DRR, through

BRAC staff, provided administrative support. WFP assisted in monitoring and liaising with various departments.

DLS was responsible for training and supply of necessary inputs.

IGVGDP was a test case of success. The project made significant contribution in raising the income level of the

rural disadvantaged women who would otherwise be left out of work. They were able to enter the active workforce.

Though their income was not much but it helped them to augment the meager earnings of the family as

well as improving the quality of life (BRAC; 1992).

Another example of GOB-NGO collaboration is CARE-TICA project. It is a technical training and systems

development project. It focuses on developing and strengthening the skills and capabilities of the field level staff

of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) through various need-based, continuous and systematic

training. CARE International provided the training and other logistics support for the MOHFW field staff

involved in the mass immunization program at the rural level. CARE was also involved in the monitoring of the

project. An evaluation of the project noted that the systems introduced by CARE-TICA have been widely

accepted and used by MOHFW workers. MOHFW workers stated that these systems made their day-to-day work

more "structured" and "systematic" and which ultimately enhanced their efficiency and productivity. TICA has

also made a significant impact on improving the knowledge of MOHFW workers and community members. This

achievement is particularly striking when compared with the overall knowledge of the same topics in control

areas (Thompson, 1992).

In principle, GOB have time and again mentioned the need and importance of NGOs as partner of development.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a noticeable ambiguity in the policies of the GOB on the role and scope of the

involvement of the NGOs in development management in Bangladesh. Different GOB plan documents have

vaguely indicated the possible use of the NGOs but could not identify any specific packages of intervention

strategy. Though there have been some success cases, due to in-built bureaucratic inertia and institutional

jealousy, GOB agencies are not much interested to go for such collaborative projects. The overall tone of the

GOB plan documents (FFYP) emphasizes the "use" and "coordination of NGOs" by the government agencies

rather than any positive attempt for institutional collaboration.

V. Small and Local NGOs

This institutional arrangement aims at upgrading the capacity of small local NGOs for implementing poverty

alleviation projects. Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) established in 1990 by the GOB, is the lead

agency in such approach. PKSF's broad goal is to implement income and employment generating programs for

alleviation of poverty for the landless and the assestless people in the rural areas through various NGOs, local

level organizations. PKSF calls these as the Partner Organizations (POs). The Foundation, during the financial

year 1992-93, through its 79 POs, has distributed a sum of Tk.100 million. The total sum of the direct loans as

well as of the revolving loan provided by the POs have so far rendered credit support to over 70,000 landlessassetless

people in rural Bangladesh of which 83 percent are women (PKSF;1992). As this is a fairly new

direction in institutional experimentation for poverty alleviation, there is as yet little by way of evaluation studies