Foreign aid has dwindled globally due to recession in western countries. Huge devastation of infrastructures as well as miseries of people in erstwhile East Pakistan during the 1971 liberation war had seen foreign friends of the country providing generous funds to the newly independent country to rebuild it. Non-government organisations were favoured recipients of donors' money as these were found to use such funds maintaining strict accountability and transparency. After all, donors give their tax-payers' money for different poverty alleviation as well as education and health-related programmes and are answerable to the citizens of their countries on use of funds.
Some genuinely credible organisations in Bangladesh are still receiving such funds because of their selfless and unique contribution to the cause of the poor. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease and Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) and the Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB) are the two which have outshone others in terms of achievements.
While the ICDDR,B has drawn international attention for effectively dealing successfully with a deadly disease once called cholera or now diarrhoea, the FPAB too has made its mark in handling maternal, child health and family planning issues. Established as early as in 1953, it has rendered social service and contributed to medical science.
Well-known personalities like Dr Mohammad Ibrahim of Diabetic Hospital fame, Moyezuddin Ahmed, Anisur Rahman, Principal Abdul Kashem, former Inspector General of Police Alamgir MA Kabir, Prof Feroza Begum, senior journalist Syed Mahbub Alam Baby, Dr Ahmed Neaz, Shamsul Islam, Dr Nilima Ibrahim, and others were directly associated with the FPAB and took the Association to newer heights. The president of the FPAB is Prof Khaleda Khanam, former whip of parliament. Known as an incorruptible personality, she was first inducted into social service by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1973.
But the FPAB today faces the gravest crisis of its existence due to conspiracies of a vested quarter which tried to swindle donors' money. The donors had once suspended funds to the FPAB due to corrupt practices. But it was Khaleda Khanam who had persuaded the donors to resume funding its projects after three officials were sacked following recommendation of donor-organised external auditing of its accounts. The three included an assistant director and a programme assistant. A powerful quarter throwing its lot behind these sacked officials is now resorting to different tactics to get the corrupt officials re-employed but it failed. Their return to the FPAB will simply compel the donors to stop funding once again. Among the donors are the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the European Union, the Netherlands, Oxfam, AustAid, the US government and others.
The FPAB today has emerged as a trend-setter in mother-child care and family planning, earning praise from the international community. Presently it is providing services through its 21 branches, 11 special work units, three special units, 1,487 reproductive health promoters who are equivalent to family welfare assistants, 72 family development centres, 21 madrasha health posts, 21 youth centres and 1,000 satellite camps every month. Official sources said, a total of 7,002,897 women and children received FPAB services in 2014 alone.
No time should now be wasted in saving the FPAB from the vested quarter. The Association had been the pioneer of family planning programmes and had played a pivotal role in formation of the Family Planning Directorate and formulation of the country's first population policy.
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