Habibur Rahman, a 45-year-old rickshaw puller, lost his only source of income during a countrywide blockade in December last. His rickshaw was set afire by vandals in Chittagong. But Habibur, along with two other people, were nabbed for the arson. Only six months back Habibur received the rickshaw from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Chittagong as part of their regular Income Generating Activities (IGA). He was supposed to reimburse the actual cost of the rickshaw over a period of next two years in small installments. Like Habibur, many poor people across the country were killed while many others lost their shelters, valuable assets or faced harassment during the strike and blockade programmes in the last three months.
Due to the political bickering over general election the whole economy was badly hampered while implementation of development programmes slowed down, foreign aid spending was in the slow lane and aid effectiveness lost its balance, mostly at the field level. The progress in implementation of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) in this financial year is likely to suffer a major setback due to the ongoing political uncertainty, although it hit 96 per cent in the fiscal year 2012-13. The progress in implementation of donor-funded projects in the first four months (July-Oct) of the current fiscal year stood at 15 per cent compared to 20 per cent during the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal year.
After taking his oath of office the Finance Minister has declared that the government plans to cut the GDP (gross domestic product) growth outlook by around 1.0 percentage point as it thinks the previous target of 7.2 per cent was 'ambitious' amid the political volatility. The World Bank also has estimates that it will be less than 6.0 per cent. According to data from the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of Bangladesh, the foreign fund disbursement increased only by 2.0 per cent in the first five months of this fiscal year due to the slow project implementation caused by the national election and the political turmoil. During the period between July and November 2013, about $ 987 million was disbursed in foreign aid, which was only 29 per cent of the target. Meanwhile, with the aim of speeding up project implementation, the Prime Minister recently formed a fast-track project monitoring committee to monitor implementation of projects of national importance.
Apart from the dismal scenario at the national level, the country faces problems with implementation of projects at the local level also due to the political instability. This undermines the country's development progress and affects the lives of marginalised people directly. Donors have expressed grave concerns over the political instability.
They fear this instability could render development programmes ineffective by slowly reducing funds. The relevant data already reveals a significant drop in foreign aid commitment, an almost 28 per cent slip from $ 1.6 billion to $ 1.2 billion in 2014 (World Bank).
It is evident that implementation of development projects was greatly hampered by the recent political turmoil. Development organisations were frequently forced to postpone their scheduled programmes, particularly capacity building training, as the situation did not permit gathering people at a certain place. The political turmoil had completely disrupted communications between and among development workers and the representatives of local government institutions (LGIs). The representatives of LGIs were not interested to organise, and participate in, regular meetings as they felt insecure.
The recent political unrest impacted on budget utilisation of development programmes as activities could not be implemented as per plan. Most of the projects did not achieve their targets of fund utilisation as the field-level teams were compelled to review their plans because of holidays, weekends and even strike and blockade programmes.
In addition, due to the political crisis, different communities are feeling insecure, they cannot move smoothly. Farmers are not getting fair prices for their produce. The implementation of projects is getting delayed while the country needs to develop infrastructure, boost investments, improve the business climate, develop skills of the people and improve governance in order to ensure economic growth in the days to come.
If donors reduce their funds for the country, it will not be a big surprise. It can cause a serious recession in the development sector which will impact on the country's progress as well as employment opportunities. So, it is expected that there will be a permanent solution to the political bickering so that government officials, local government representatives and the communities as a whole can regain the confidence and get involved in the development process.
The writer is Programme Officer — Urban DRR, Oxfam in Bangladesh.
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