ISTR Fifth International Conference Cape Town, South Africa / July 7-10, 2002 Transforming Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance: The Third Sector in an Era of Global (Dis)Order

Mokbul Morshed Ahmad email

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. Now a large number of NGOs are working to alleviate the poverty of the masses. But do they reach the poor? What services do they provide and how much does it help in alleviating poverty and empowering the poor? This article attempts to answer these questions and tries to see whether NGOs in Bangladesh can make a change in the lives of the millions of poor in Bangladesh. The paper will first outline the overall situation of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOsⁱ) in Bangladesh, then set out their relations with the donors, state and clients in detail and finally make proposals for improvements. Even the largest NGOs in Bangladesh taken together cover only a fraction of the population: some have estimated that they reach only 10-20 per cent of landless households. NGO impact on poverty reduction has also been minimal. State-NGO relations in Bangladesh have moved through stages of indifference and ambivalence.

The target group approach has allowed NGOs in Bangladesh to work successfully with the rural poor and provide inputs to a constituency generally bypassed by the state. This approach emphasised the centrality of landlessness to a 'development' strategy, and placed the needs of landless women increasingly to the forefront of its programmes. A second innovation by the NGOs in Bangladesh was the prioritisation of non-land-based sources of income-generation for this target group, an area which had been substantially neglected by the state. In particular, these income-generation activities are important to the survival strategies of poor women, i.e. to both man and woman-headed households. This innovation led to a concentration of efforts into small-scale, home-based income-generating activities such as cattle and poultry-rearing, food processing, social forestry, apiculture and rural handicrafts, combined with the provision of microcredit, to which the landless had previously been denied access except from local moneylenders at high cost.

NGO initiatives in establishing income-generating activities proved to be an effective alternative to top-down state programmes of rural works, but the extremely low rates of return on such activities have caused many to question their long-term sustainability. Some NGOs have engaged themselves in promoting the rights of sex workers, slum dwellers in addition to their 'development' work. Some have shown success in promoting human rights particularly women's' rights. This has been accompanied by backlash from the local elite, religious leaders and organisations. But NGO relations with their clientele appear to have become increasingly credit oriented, and there are now more restrictive rules (such as savings), all of which mitigate against the feasibility of participatory procedures. The likelihood, therefore, of NGOs facilitating empowerment of poor people seems to have diminished during their expansion. Although NGOs claim that their social programmes are open to all but Rahman and Razzaque (2000) found that social programmes are closely linked with credit programmes which create a problem for participation in the social programmes by the extreme poor. Only limited efforts have been made to make NGO operations truly participatory. Clients are seldom allowed to make decisions on programmes or budgets, or even to participate in monitoring and evaluation. Their participation is limited to relatively inconsequential areas of decision-making. The solidarity and strength of groups of poor people is overshadowed by, and dependent on, the presence of the NGO. Clients who want access to state relief or who demand higher wages may do so less because of their own strength than because of the power of the NGO, which in some areas is more influential than the village landlord, the local contractor or the state functionary. Too much dependence, especially by the bulk majority of the rural poor, has led to a condition of 'NGO take-over' in the rural areas. Indigenous social institutions have become weaker and are gradually disappearing. In the NGO infested areas, rural people, especially the poorer sections now look for the intervention of the NGOs over any socio-economic issues.

Most Bangladeshi NGOs are totally dependent on foreign funds. High levels of donor funding have had two major consequences. First, NGOs have become donor-dependent, not merely in terms of the funding that is essential to their existence, but also in terms of seeking donor assistance to legitimise their activities. Second, upward accountability to donors has skewed NGO activities towards donor-driven agendas for development rather than to indigenous priorities. In reality, the only way to counter the influence of government and donors is through increased reliance on the clients - the rural poor. Only through the development of a system of accountability to the poor could NGOs truly transform themselves into organisations of the poor. Only by becoming organisations of the poor could NGOs truly prepare for a sustained struggle for empowerment.

ⁱ NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations): The World Bank usually refers to nongovernmental organisations as any group or institution that is independent from government, and that has humanitarian or co-operative, rather than commercial, objectives. Specifically, the Bank focuses on NGOs that work in the areas of development, relief or environmental protection, or that represent poor or vulnerable people (World Bank, 1996). This definition of NGO has been used in this paper.

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