Written evidence submitted by Dr Naomi Hossain, Research Fellow, Participation, Power and Social Change Team, Institute of Development Studies

 

 

[Note: This submission draws on research in Bangladesh in which the author has been engaged since 2003, initially at the Research and Evaluation Division of BRAC in Dhaka, and since mid-2008 as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. Some relevant research outputs from this body of work are cited along with references to other relevant documentary evidence in Sources.]

 

 

DFID's support for more effective governance and institution building in Bangladesh

 

Poverty reduction amidst weak governance

 

1. It is necessary to consider efforts to establish effective governance and strengthen institutions of accountability in the context of persistent mass poverty in Bangladesh, as this remains a defining characteristic of the polity and of state-society relationships. Critical questions to ask of DFID's support for strengthening governance and accountability in this context include the extent to which this has a) supported processes of poverty reduction and human development and b) strengthened governance and accountability as experienced by poor and marginal citizens.

 

2. The context here includes the paradoxical relationship between governance and poverty reduction in Bangladesh over the last 20 years. Gains were made in social and human development (particularly improved basic education access and infant and child mortality rates) and income poverty reduction through the 1990s and first half of the 2000s. But these were achieved in the effective absence of any significant governance reforms, including failures to reform the public administration of the social sectors (health, education, social protection) credited with delivering much of the pro-poor gains.

 

3. The impact of recent global food, fuel and financial crises, combined with the episodic environmental shocks to which Bangladesh is exposed have already begun to reverse progress on poverty and human development made up to the mid-2000s. Simultaneously, the return to office of 'political' government in 2009 after a two-year non-party Caretaker Government has halted efforts at political institutional and governance reform. In a context of reversing human development trends and stalled governance reforms, understanding how earlier poverty reduction and human development gains were achieved, and how DFID's programme strategy supported this, acquires added urgency.

 

 

 

 

DFID support to the big NGOs

 

4. Part of the explanation of the 'Bangladesh conundrum', as the World Bank calls this combination of good poverty/human development performance with weak governance, involves Bangladesh's unusual endowment of large, service-delivery NGOs. DFID has been a major supporter of the big NGOs. Concerns have been consistently expressed about the possibility that NGO service delivery may undermine public accountability by substituting for the state. However, there are strong reasons to believe that:

a. the big NGOs mainly supply services that the state does not (e.g. microfinance) or in areas and to populations that the state cannot effectively reach

b. where NGOs and the state supply similar or parallel services, this has created some positive competitive pressures (mass education) and enabled some learning and new practice within public agencies (social protection). There have also been a number of successful social sector partnerships (preventive and curative health programmes, social protection, pre-primary education) between the big NGOs and public agencies which have strengthened rather than weakening the responsiveness and accountability of the Bangladeshi state to poor and marginal citizens.

c. where the big NGOs have established significant sectoral programmes and expertise, they are beginning to play a stronger role as civil society watchdogs. This includes significant monitoring and analytical capacities, including production of sectoral reports on health, education, and governance on which this present submission has drawn (see Sources).

 

Demand for good governance

 

5. DFID's support to civil society has, with considerable success, supported the raising of the profile of governance issues within public debate in Bangladesh. Issues of corruption and public accountability across the public sectors are now widely and routinely scrutinised in the media and public discourse. It is, however, less clear that support to civil society has succeeded in generating demand for good governance among poor citizens specifically, or for the dimensions of governance that poorer citizens may wish to prioritise (similar criticisms have been made of budget monitoring exercises in Bangladesh). An example of this is the recent Right To Information (RTI) campaign, which succeeded in achieving some high-end governance goals that should in theory create legislation for greater transparency and thereby strengthen public accountability. But the campaign was dominated by elite debates among lawyers and journalists. This is in distinct contrast to RTI movements elsewhere (e.g. India), where at least part of the impetus for reform was stimulated by popular support for/recognition of the material significance of greater transparency with respect to livelihoods and access to public resources.

 

6. A related set of issues is the focus of civil society activism on formal and official mechanisms of accountability. This is problematic given the extent and severity of poverty, which has tended to support the patronage basis of party political competition. A focus on activism around formal governance mechanisms in practice excludes much participation from people who lack formal education and familiarity with official procedures. Yet a body of scholarship has established the strength of Bangladeshi society in relation to the state, and it is reasonable to speculate that some of Bangladesh's social sector achievements reflect the relative strength of citizen capacities for exerting informal pressures for accountability on public sector service providers. In a context in which reforms of formal governance are likely to remain elusive, DFID's support for more effective governance could valuably be strengthened in favour of the poor by drawing on its experience with respect to social accountability elsewhere to support similar efforts within Bangladesh.

 

7. In addition, governance programming at the sectoral level could make more systematic efforts to support the informal mechanisms of accountability that poor citizens already use in their relations with public service providers. This could include intervention on the 'demand' side, for example, supporting participatory monitoring of beneficiary selection in conditional cash transfer or safety nets programmes. It could also include intervention on the 'supply' side, by designing incentive systems for teachers and doctors that recognise and reward modes of responsiveness that are currently either ignored or actively discouraged within bureaucratic rule systems.

 

 

Human security and justice sector reform

 

8. One area in which aid to governance has in general been inadequate in Bangladesh is in relation to protection against everyday forms of insecurity. Based on their substantial experience of field research with poor people across Bangladesh, researchers within BRAC Research and Evaluation Division and BRAC Development Institute concluded in 2006 that there was a compelling and urgent need for an assessment of the situation regarding crime, violence and everyday forms of insecurity in the population.

 

9. The conclusions of the multi-disciplinary nationally-representative study undertaken to explore these issues were that:

a. Criminal and violent forms of insecurity present a low-level but chronic threat

b. The experience of crime, violence and other forms of insecurity is highly gendered, as well as differentiated by rural-urban location, poverty level, ethnic and religious minority status, and by environmental security

c. Strategies for coping with the threat of criminal and violent forms of insecurity can lead to adverse incorporation or 'Faustian bargains' that are detrimental to wellbeing and development

d. Informal institutions for protecting against the threat of criminal and violent insecurities are widespread, although these have to date neither been documented or analysed by research, nor considered within policy debates.

 

10. Police and justice sector reform agendas have not to date been informed by an adequate - or even a partial - understanding of the everyday insecurities faced by Bangladeshi citizens, and their impact on the poor and marginal. These issues, particularly the potential value of informal and community-based security arrangements, merit considerably greater attention in any future DFID programme on governance in Bangladesh.

 

 

General issues relating to the appropriate size and scope of DFID's programme in Bangladesh

 

11. An overall concern about the size and scope of DFID's Bangladesh programme is that compared to the early- to mid-2000s, DFID staff in Dhaka appear increasingly pressed for time, partly because larger programmes are being managed with fewer professional staff. Other reasons may include the transaction costs of donor harmonisation, which DFID staff in Dhaka bear significantly more of than other bilateral donors, because of the size and diversity of the DFID portfolio. These observations arise from my role as a regular DFID consultant and recipient of DFID research commissions, based in Dhaka over the period 2003-8. They also draw on research into the sociology of donor-recipient relations in Bangladesh in which I was involved in 2003-4 (with Rosalind Eyben and Rosario Leon). Even committed professional staff lacked adequate time to engage with the evidence, travel beyond the capital city, or to develop the relationships that would be necessary for a rounded and fully-informed perspective on the issues on which they work.

 

 

Sources

 

On poverty and governance; crisis impact

Raihan, S. (2009). 'Impact of Food Price Rise on School Enrolment and Dropout in the Poor and Vulnerable Households in Selected Areas of Bangladesh', Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and Department for International Development

Sulaiman, M., Parveen, M. And Das, N. (2009). 'Impact of the Food Price Hike on Nutritional Status of Women and Children', Dhaka: BRAC Research and Evaluation Division monograph series no. 38.

World Bank (2008). Bangladesh: Poverty Assessment for Bangladesh: Creating Opportunities and Bridging the East-West Divide, Washington DC: World Bank

 

On NGOs

Verulam Associates (2005). 'The Impact of Big NGOs on Poverty and Democratic Governance in Bangladesh', Report to DfID Bangladesh

World Bank (2006). The Economics and Governance of NGOs in Bangladesh, Washington DC: World Bank

 

On demand for good governance / informal accountability

FMRP (2007). Governance, Management and Performance in Health and Education Facilities in Bangladesh: Findings from the Social Sector Performance Qualitative Study, Financial Management Reform Programme, Ministry of Finance, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka

Hossain, N. (2009). 'Rude Accountability in the Unreformed State: Informal Pressures on Frontline Bureaucrats in Bangladesh', IDS working paper 319, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

Institute of Governance Studies (2006). The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2006: Knowledge, Perceptions, Reality, Dhaka: BRAC University Institute of Governance Studies

PPRC (2007). Unbundling Governance. Dhaka: Power and Participation Resource Centre

 

Human security and justice sector reform

IGS (2008). 'Crime, Violence, and Insecurity', chapter four in The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2007: Expectations, Commitments, Challenge, Dhaka: BRAC University Institute of Governance Studies (with colleagues)

Saferworld (2008). Human Security in Bangladesh. London: Saferworld