While the Planning Commission has readied the second version of the poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) with a new slogan -- 'Moving Ahead' -- it is worthwhile to recall the rare outburst made by the ICT minister Dr Moyeen Khan of the then four-party alliance government. Throwing the PRSP documents on the floor at a gathering that included the representatives of the donor agencies, Moyeen branded the 300-page PRSP as "worthless". The incident shocked all in the meeting.
Why was Moyeen so angry? Candidly speaking, he found that there was no mention of ICT in the high profile document. Role of information and communications technology (ICT) in poverty reduction is very important, but the issue was totally ignored in the first PRSP. The PRSP's journey in Bangladesh, indeed, began with a bumpy ride. Some even argued that the PRSP had died a premature death. Unfortunately, with its bumpy start, the government had also failed to take the recommendations of the report seriously for halving poverty by 2015.
The interim government has spent about two months of the 2008-09 fiscal year without a long-term development strategy at hand, even after the expiry of the four-year period of the poverty reduction strategy. Now the draft document of PRSP-II is scheduled to be placed for endorsement before the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting later this month.
Experts are not sure about any poverty reduction as a result of the implementation of the first PRSP. The new document, too, will not be of much benefit to the poor despite the common slogan of pro-poor economic growth, they said. The government has no objective data on the poverty situation after the Household Income and Expenditure Survey-2005 whereas private research groups have found increase in poverty or at least stagnation in the process recently, though for a different reason -- price hike of food grains.
Now the authors of the draft document have acknowledged the failure in achieving the targets set in the first strategy paper after various quarters, including economists, criticised the poor status of implementation due to lack of institutional capacity and political commitment to development. Implementation failures have been so endemic that it is seen as a critical strategic challenge. Problems related to regulations, laws, projects and programmes and poor institutional mechanism have been generally identified as obstacles to implementing and monitoring the progress in poverty reduction.
The new strategy paper has made an estimate of target implementation at Tk 2540 billion. A resource gap between availability of funds from domestic sources and requirement of money for implementing PRSP goals has also been projected at more than Tk 610 billion in three-year implementation period. The government is also preparing a long-term participatory perspective plan setting 2021 as the deadline for making the country free of poverty and corruption.
In order to expedite the poverty reduction process, the draft strategy paper has outlined five strategy blocks -- pro-poor macroeconomic management, investments in important sectors for pro-poor economic growth, infrastructure building for pro-poor growth, social protection for vulnerable groups and human resources development. Five more areas have also been selected in the draft document to achieve the pro-poor development -- participation of all strata of the people and their empowerment, establishment of good governance, effective delivery of public services, facing the challenge of weather and climate change for sustainable development and enhancing productivity by means of innovation and extension of technologies.
The authors of the draft document said the opinions and suggestions made in the consultations by different ministries and divisions and also the opinions of the development partners were reflected in the PRSP-II. Yet some critics said that although consultations were held to take opinions before preparing the document, the suggestions made by some stakeholders were not incorporated in the document because of the government's 'tendency towards swallowing the lenders' recipe'. The draft is designed for the next three fiscal years with the expectation that the GDP would grow at the rates of 6.7, 7.0 and 7.2 per cent.
What is true about PRSP-II is that its preparation as well as approval is not simply enough. It is the proper implementation of the programme upon which its success depends. In Bangladesh, the history of implementation of development projects is not very encouraging -- rather it has a long tradition of not being able to fully utilise the project fund and resources without achieving both physical and financial targets.
Since the government is unable to finance PRSP out of its own resources, the dependency on the donors is expected to increase more and more and in that case the relationship with the donors needs to be intimate and closer. On different issues -- good governance, corruption, terrorism and law and order situation, rise of militancy, free and fair election -- and for similar other reasons, donors are showing their cold attitudes and the relationship with donors is souring day by day. This trend needs to be reversed.
If the present trend of corruption and administrative inefficiency persists, there is little hope for any success in the implementation of PRSP-II. Unless the present administrative machinery is totally overhauled, relieved of political and partisan pressure, corruption is curbed down to a reasonable extent and a viable and long term reform agenda is developed through political will and commitment, the goals of PRSP will not be achieved and the country will not be able to get rid of the vicious circle of poverty.
szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com
