Recession, competition put charities at odds

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Mostafa Golam Quddus

A Z M Anas
The global recession has slowed aid flow into charities but an ever-increasing competition for donors' fund has put non-profit organisations at more disadvantageous position, a senior Asia Foundation official said Saturday.
"It's a crowded field," Melody Schram Zavala, a director of the US-based non-government group, said.
"The challenge is more than the global economic crisis. Many organisations are trying to make a difference," she told this correspondent, implicitly referring to the competition for donors' largess.
Founded in 1950s, the Asia-focussed foundation is dedicated to the causes of improvement of governance, economic reform, development and international relations.
In 2009, it appropriated more than US$86 million in core programme support while handed out nearly one million books and journals valued at over $43 million, according to its statistics.
Much of the foundation's funding, its officials say, was available from governments, multilateral institutions, corporations, private foundations and individuals.
Ms. Zavala, who came to Dhaka last week to evaluate her agency's book donation programme in Bangladesh, agreed the worst recession in generations has clogged the global aid flow, but avoided a direct reply about how it affected its own programmes.
Instead, she singled out competition within the non-profit world, saying that her organisation can't attract donors, which have interest in environment.
"People outside Bangladesh always get a minute for thought before commitment," said the foundation official who was once responsible for matching donors' interest with the foundation progarmmes throughout Asia.
The foundation maintains 18 offices across Asia, an office in Washington D.C. with its headquarters
in San Francisco.
Asked whether she would raise book donation programme for Bangladesh, Ms. Zavala said her agency looks at the issue in an "intelligent way."
"Our clients' demand list is never-ending. But it's a matter of supply," she said.
The foundation runs its book programme since 1954 and donates more than 40,000 new books annually to hundreds of institutions in all six divisions of the country and many other towns and cities including Dhaka.
So far this year, the foundation's book donation reached 60,000 in Bangladesh, making it one of the top 10 recipients in the continent.
The visiting official said she would take a look at the state of education in Bangladesh and seek to have an insight into the foundation's book programme.
The Columbia-educated foreign affairs expert noted that it requires a combination of resources, public policy and quality teaching to improve a country's education system.
Asked how Bangladesh could harness the potential of its positive demographics, the California-born development professional said the young population should be provided with quality education and training.
She said the entire process is time-consuming and the country should be "patient" as it educates its youth population that makes up more than two-thirds of the country's 162 million people.
But she said if the young groups are not educated, the positive demographics isn't going to benefit the country, which strives to become a middle-income nation in a decade.
Ms. Zavala said a resource-poor country should also make a critical balance for its equally demanding priorities such as education, health or infrastructure.
A fluent speaker in Spanish and Russian, the foundation official is upbeat about Bangladesh's future as she staked on the country's apparel exports and its "smart" people, who are increasingly tech-savvy.
The World Bank says garment shipment and workers' remittances have kept Bangladesh's economic wheel running, generating employment, cutting poverty and fostering domestic demand.