Introduction

Institutional framework of Poverty Alleviation: An Overview of Bangladesh Experiences

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).