Creating employment opportunity should be the first priority

In the poor and low-income countries, involving the people in the production system is always a big challenge for the governments. Until a government is able to make optimum use of its potential, whether it is the labour force or the other resources it has, a country cannot develop holistically. With the gradual evolution of industrialization in Bangladesh, the aggregate output of the country is increasing accordingly while creating some employment. But to what extent our under-educated and unskilled workers are gaining economic freedom is a big question. Besides this, a large portion of the population still remains out of the production cycle. They cannot contribute to the mainstream economic cycle of the country nor can they do something to earn their livelihood informally for many reasons. One of the reasons is the lack of social capital while the unavailability of physical capital also cannot be ignored. Like many other countries, Bangladesh has also adopted a Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP) for providing support to the vulnerable people, whom the capitalist economy cannot capture in the production side of the market. But the amount allowed by the limited capacity of the government for providing support to the people is severely insufficient in these days of high commodity prices. Bangladesh has more than 30 social safety net programmes, but the amount of money allocated for this purpose is so inadequate that many people question the effectiveness of such programmes. Then again, it is difficult for the government to allocate more resources to these programmes due to budgetary constraints. Thus, it is important to invest in human capacity building and encourage the setting up of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) for creating income-generating opportunities for the unemployed. Both the government and the Non-government Organizations (NGOs) can play an important in this regard. The government needs to come up with projects in which the NGOs can participate, to create income-generating activities especially in the rural areas. The Disaster Management and Relief Division (DMRD) has now decided to implement a programme called "Employment Generation Program for the Poorest" (EGPP), designed to provide employment to the rural poor. Under this programme, for the first time, a upazila-based poverty map was used to identify the concentrated pockets of the hardcore poor of the country. The specific objectives of this initiative are: To create employment for the extreme poor during lean period; strengthening the SSNPs in the poorest and remote areas where the most hardcore poor are concentrated; and to increase the purchasing power of the extreme poor affected by the food price hike. A budgetary allocation of Tk 10 billion has been kept for this programme during the 2010-11 fiscal. About 800,000 hardcore poor will be benefited from this program. This is really a commendable initiative from the part of the government if it is implemented properly and successfully. The government has allocated 15 per cent of the national budget, which is 2.5 per cent of the GDP in FY 2010-11, for ensuring social security of the vulnerable poor and their empowerment. It is indeed a substantial amount and it is also increasing with the size of the budget every year. Although the government is the main agent for development, many development activities are also carried out by the NGOs through various programmes, including income-generating activities targeting the rural poor. However, the NGOs also seem to spend a lot of money in some trivial and fruitless activities. To improve on this situation, two things should be done: making the entire NGO sector transparent and the other is minimizing the external and managerial costs of the NGOs. If these steps are taken, the NGOs will be able to enhance the income-generating activities for the poor and the trust gap between the common people and NGOs will shrink. NGOs have a wide reach around the country, which can be used in a more effective way for the betterment of the people. They can influence rural households to employ more diversified income-generating strategies which can include a variety of both agricultural and non-agricultural activities. In our country inherited occupation is very prevalent and a household goes for one trade or business only. It employs all the household labour in that one only whether it needs that many labourers or not. Thus, the labour force remains underutilized and there is disguised unemployment. It is a traditional practice and so the sons get involved in their father's trade, may be because they are not willing to take a risk or they lack the capital. NGOs can work in this area by building awareness and capacity of the people by providing training and they can also help build entrepreneurship among these people through microcredit programmes. In many countries like Albania, Bulgaria and Nepal there is significant variation in rural income earning with livestock playing a significant role while agricultural wage is still the most important income-earning activity in rural areas of Bangladesh. In addition, the service sector is expanding rapidly which can also absorb a good number of the labour force. Thus, promoting the agriculture and service sectors is very much important now to create more employment opportunities. The writer is a Development Researcher and an Assistant Director at D.Net. He can be reached e-mail: mithunmds07@gmail.com