Finance adviser unhappy with donors
FE Report | Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Finance and Planning Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam Monday criticised the donors' red-tapism saying "you have different layers" in fund approval process and related development works of the government making delay in project implementation.
"Your (donors') country office should communicate with your headquarters to make fund as well as project approval process smooth and quick, he said at a dialogue on "Accra conference on aid effectiveness: perspectives from Bangladesh" in the city.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a local research institution, organised the discussion ahead of the conference on aid effectiveness in Accra of Ghana, to be held on September 2-4.
Additonal director of the CPD Fahmida Khatun presented the keynote paper in the dialogue with CPD's Chairman Rehman Sobhan in the chair.
Mentioning some difficulties in utilising the aid effectively, Mirza Aziz said: "The government has prepared its own procurement rules having close consultion with the major donors. But they do not follow our rules rather they insist on following their own rules."
"Though it is not a big problem, but your (donors') different layers in project approval process is impeding our aid utilisation and project implementation properly," he said.
About imposition of different conditions by donors for receiving their assistance, the finance adviser said "you could give us different suggestions for our sustainable development but you should not dictate us about our democracy, human rights etc as these are exclusively ours."
Ruling out donors' apprehension about the adoption of the upcoming poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) by the next elected government, he said, as the government has conducted different consultation meetings with the stakeholders "I believe that everybody will follow policy paper."
"Over the last one year there was no change in our national economy dramatically. The second PRSP also will have no big change except continuation of the first one," he said.
Replying to criticism of most of the speakers on imposition of conditions by donors on the aid recipient country, lead economist of World Bank, Vinoy Swaroop said "As you have a good PRS, you could take development projects in line of the strategy paper and then you should call the donors for funding that."
"But you have lack of knowledge, you have a lack of skilled manpower to do so. You should build your capacity," he said.
Japanese Ambassador Masayuki Inoue said transparency in both the aid recipient countries and the donors should be ensured to utilise the aid effectively.
The keynote speaker, Khatun, said lack of predictability of aid flow, increased conditionality, absence of accountability and lack of coordination between donors and recipient countries are impeding the utilisation of foreign aid effectively.
"Your (donors') country office should communicate with your headquarters to make fund as well as project approval process smooth and quick, he said at a dialogue on "Accra conference on aid effectiveness: perspectives from Bangladesh" in the city.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a local research institution, organised the discussion ahead of the conference on aid effectiveness in Accra of Ghana, to be held on September 2-4.
Additonal director of the CPD Fahmida Khatun presented the keynote paper in the dialogue with CPD's Chairman Rehman Sobhan in the chair.
Mentioning some difficulties in utilising the aid effectively, Mirza Aziz said: "The government has prepared its own procurement rules having close consultion with the major donors. But they do not follow our rules rather they insist on following their own rules."
"Though it is not a big problem, but your (donors') different layers in project approval process is impeding our aid utilisation and project implementation properly," he said.
About imposition of different conditions by donors for receiving their assistance, the finance adviser said "you could give us different suggestions for our sustainable development but you should not dictate us about our democracy, human rights etc as these are exclusively ours."
Ruling out donors' apprehension about the adoption of the upcoming poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) by the next elected government, he said, as the government has conducted different consultation meetings with the stakeholders "I believe that everybody will follow policy paper."
"Over the last one year there was no change in our national economy dramatically. The second PRSP also will have no big change except continuation of the first one," he said.
Replying to criticism of most of the speakers on imposition of conditions by donors on the aid recipient country, lead economist of World Bank, Vinoy Swaroop said "As you have a good PRS, you could take development projects in line of the strategy paper and then you should call the donors for funding that."
"But you have lack of knowledge, you have a lack of skilled manpower to do so. You should build your capacity," he said.
Japanese Ambassador Masayuki Inoue said transparency in both the aid recipient countries and the donors should be ensured to utilise the aid effectively.
The keynote speaker, Khatun, said lack of predictability of aid flow, increased conditionality, absence of accountability and lack of coordination between donors and recipient countries are impeding the utilisation of foreign aid effectively.