Small and Local NGO projects.

Small and Local NGO projects.

I. Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB)

Until the early seventies, rural development was largely conceived of as agricultural development. The two-tier

cooperative system of the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP), based on famous Comilla model, has

been the sole institutional framework to implement the rural development programs in Bangladesh. The IRDP

was later transformed into a national organization named Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB)

through the ordinance LIII of 1982. BRDB was assigned to develop the cooperative system and implement

various rural development programs.

BRDB is the largest institutional set-up of the GOB which is directly engaged in organizing and managing rural

development and poverty alleviation program in Bangladesh. Eighty five percent of the BRDB efforts are carried

out in the form of projects in which 91% of the share is contributed by different multilateral and bilateral Donor

organizations (Interchain, 1990).

BRDB has been undertaking group-based loan operations through cooperatives. This is perhaps the largest

institutional effort in the country to address the socio-economic needs of the rural people. Initially set up for the

agricultural sector, BRDB later diversified its services to incorporate the asset less men and women as well. With

a two-tier cooperative structure, there are primary societies at the field level which have three-fold divisions:

Bittahin Samabay Samity (BSS), for the landless and poorest of the poor, Krishak Samabay Samity (KSS) for the

farmers, and Mahila Bittahin Samabay Samity (MBSS) for the destitute women. The coordination of activities of

the above three types of societies in an area is done at the Thana 5 level by the respective Thana level Central

Cooperative Society. Starting with only 33 Thanas in 1971-72, BRDB now has practically covered whole

Bangladesh. BRDB's membership exceeds 2.4 million, of which almost four hundred thousand are asset less and

three hundred thousand are poor women. So far, BRDB has disbursed loans amounting to Taka 7000 million

(cumulative) and has collected savings amounting to Taka 440 million. It may be mentioned that the

cooperatives control 45% and 70% of all the sunken shallow and deep-tube wells respectively, which reflects

their important contributions to the agricultural sector and rural employment (BRDB,1994).

Empirical data generated by Center for Integrated Rural Development in Asia and Pacific (Momin, 1987) reveal

that introduction of IRDP has been very much successful in boosting agricultural production but social equity has

not been addressed adequately. Powerful village groups, primarily large farmers, continue to maintain control

over facilities and economic advantage. On the other hand landlessness, unemployment, and level and incidence

of poverty increased significantly (Rahman, H.S, 1992; Aminuzzaman, 2000).

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8In order to respond to the undesirable trend, in 1982-83 BRDB introduced a package of intervention called Rural

Poor Project (RPP) to facilitate participation of the rural poor in socio-economic and infrastructural development

projects. Under the RPP project, until 1991-92 a total of Tk. 15.07 million has been distributed as credit to the

rural poor, of which only Tk.5.4 million has been recovered. The overall recovery rate as computed by BRDB is

as low as 7.72 % (BRDB, 1993).

Since the beginning of 1980s BRDB designed some special rural development projects under the brand name of

RD-5, RD-9 and RD-12. These projects were designed to cater the need of non-farm rural poor target groups.

Funded largely by foreign Donors these projects came into operation in parallel to the regular projects of BRDB.

These RD projects however differ from one another, and from the regular BRDB programs, in terms of the target

groups, geographical area covered, services provided, duration and funding and the adoption of formal vs.

informal cooperative societies. Moreover each of these RD projects has its unique institutional and organizational

set-up depending on the preferences of different Donors (CIDA, 1993). Though the feed back from the

operational levels and different evaluation studies have time and again noted the need for a unified

implementation framework for such RD projects, BRDB until now has failed to put forward its own proposals for

a unified structure for the RD projects.

Lack of a unified structure has therefore resulted in the `projectization' of BRDB as each of these projects has

superimposed different types of management approaches. As a result each of these projects has operated in

virtual isolation from the rest of BRDB. This has led inevitably to duplication of functions among various project

cells and the main organizational structure of BRDB. Successive evaluation missions have therefore deplored that

BRDB itself has gained very little in terms of transference and cross-fertilization of project experiences. In other

words, the professed secondary objective of all these projects, i.e. BRDB institution building has not been

achieved.

Donor agencies however are not satisfied with the BRDB's performance and institutional capabilities. Different

studies have summarized the donors assessment about the BRDB:

BRDB is a highly bureaucratic and sluggish organization. It does not suit the project management style

that originally brought success to the proven model. Instead of being a task based organization BRDB

has somehow slipped into bureaucratic form of organization and follows rigid bureaucratic procedures.

The rules, procedures and task targets seem to have become the end in themselves. The organizational

set-up over the period of time has become extremely complicated with different dimensions consisting

of projects, functions and geographical set-up and intersecting each other causing diffusion of

responsibility and non-clarity of authority and almost completely lost accountability. The total

monitoring and evaluation efforts starting from reporting from the field levels and projects is not well

coordinated... Evaluation as an important management function is not scientifically resorted to by

BRDB... BRDB lacks a clearly defined institutional arrangement to absorb the outstanding activities of

terminated projects (Interchain, 1990).

The bureaucratic nature of the organization has resulted in the development of lengthy procedures, rigid

controls and management styles that inhibits the realization of potential. Interminable delays, poor

quality of implementation, non-attainment of targets, loss of staff commitment and motivation have

resulted from these practices... (CLEAR/ Plunkett, 1992).

Some donors, being so frustrated with BRDB have substantively withdrawn their support and opted for the NGOs

and other alternatives institutions. While others have devoted considerable efforts to the upgrading of the BRDB's

organization structure and management systems in order to eliminate its institutional incapacity to effectively

carry out the tasks of rural development and poverty alleviation.