Examination of Witnesses (Questions 76
- 79)
TUESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2009
PROFESSOR GEOF
WOOD AND
DR MARTIN
GREELEY
Q76 Chairman: Good morning to you.
It is very nice to see you. For the record could you introduce
yourselves.
Dr Greeley:
Good morning. I am Martin Greeley from the Institute of Development
Studies at the University of Sussex.
Professor Wood: I am Geof Wood
and I am at the University of Bath.
Q77 Chairman: Thank you both very
much for coming in. We have visited Bangladesh so we are towards
the end of the inquiry and indeed this is the last evidence session
before we take evidence from the Minister. This is a situation
where we are informed, or at least we have the benefit of what
we have seen and heard within Bangladesh, which will obviously
come through, I think, in our questioning. One of the things that
was made clear to us was that whilst the caretaker government
had in many ways set the basis to enable free and fair elections
to take place, which had done so and created a government with
a clear majority, the indications are that the old style of Bangladesh
politics is reasserting itself of winner-takes-all, the opposition
being shut out and corruption coming back in as a major factor.
I wonder first of all whether you would accept that is the situation,
given your knowledge over a much longer period than our snapshot,
and to what extent you think the activities of DFID in trying
to improve governance within Bangladesh are effective and have
been effective up until now?
Dr Greeley: I think the analysis
is accurate. I have been extremely disappointed with the performance
of the current Government and everything I hear about that performance.
If anything, it is worse than it has been before. They had a massive
victory, they are taking advantage of that and it is very much
a case of winner-take-all. I have little optimism under the current
regime in Bangladesh.
Professor Wood: The Awami League
Government, I am afraid, has always had this reputation. It was
the party of liberation from 1972 and I witnessed it operating
in Bangladesh from 1974. Whenever it has come back to power I
am afraid it has reverted to strong kinship, patrimonialism and
widespread corruption. There are within the extended family of
the formal leadership a range of actors who are not formally in
the government, they are not formally in the cabinet, but they
remain hugely influential in terms of how people access contracts
and opportunities.
Q78 Chairman: To what extent has
DFID's budget of £20 million for governance reform, which
they are spending and on which they have made some claims, contributed
in any way to counter that and indeed is it capable of doing so,
or is the situation beyond the ability of either DFID or the international
community to influence in any way?
Professor Wood: I think there
are, as always, with these situations one or two pockets of hope
and it is a question of identifying them and often that means
also identifying personalities and building on them. There is
a unit that operates within the Assembly, the People's Empowerment
Trust, which is a civil society unit supporting the Speaker of
the Jatiyo Sangshad, the Assembly, in creating some of the governance
structures like the ones we are witnessing here today. There is
some possibility of supporting that. I am also currently associated
with one of DFID's programmes in Bangladesh, the extreme poverty
programme, where we have been able to, at least formally, set
up an all-parliamentary group and we are identifying one or two
young MPs who we think we can begin to work with and try and provide
them with enough evidence and arguments so that they can be effective.
As always, there are some pockets.
Q79 Chairman: Can I just pick out
one thing. In our briefing DFID says that they help to ensure
the government budget is more responsive to the poor and sensitive
to general issues. Do you believe that to be true?
Professor Wood: The present Finance
Minister in the new government has definitely produced a far more
pro-poor budget. What is interesting is that the current Governor
of the Bangladesh Bank, who is a personal friend of mine, Atiur
Rahman, for many years, over 15 or 20 years, annually produced
a pro-poor critique of the annual government budget and he is
now the Governor of the Bangladesh Bank and able to pull various
levers. I think we have got two people in quite strong positions.
I am not sure whether DFID can take much credit or responsibility
for that but, nevertheless, I think that there are two people
in rather key positions who are looking in the right direction.
Dr Greeley: I think it is good
that they are in fact putting a focus on poverty, but if we go
back through all the five-year plans that has always been the
case. There was much amusement in Bangladesh when the IMF came
in and announced that we had to do poverty reduction strategy
papers and focus on poverty. If they had bothered to look at the
Bangladesh plans they would have seen that had always been the
focus. The problem is not identifying the issue; the problem is
how the Government sets about implementing its plans, and the
levels of corruption associated with expenditures which are supposed
to be for the poor.
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