Written evidence submitted by Dr Gerard
Gill
THE APPROPRIATE
SIZE AND
SCOPE OF
DFID'S PROGRAMME
IN BANGLADESH
1. I do not feel qualified to comment on
the size of DFID's programme in Bangladesh.
2. In terms of scope, the focus of support
from the ODA-DFID continuum has changed globally over the years
from emphasis on productive activities to accentuation of less
tangible areas, such as governance and institution building. This
is not limited to DFID: the same tendency is found in many other
donor agencies, so the effect is cumulative. This policy shift
on the part of DFID-B is a reflection of changes in policy at
London level. Many Bangladeshi development specialists find it
difficult to accept that a donor agency has comparative advantage
in areas such as governance, whereas they feel these agencies
do have comparative advantage in areas where technical expertise
and financial investment are required. The pendulum has, in my
view, swung too far, and too little attention is now paid to issues
such as food insecurity, which is a huge problem in Bangladesh.
The steady increase in global food prices from the early 2000s
until the sharp price spike of 2008 should serve as a wake-up
call which tells us that renewed investment is needed in improving
food security. While food prices have declined from their peak
in mid-2008, they remain high and volatile, and according to a
joint FAO-OECD medium-term outlook for major agricultural commodities
published in May 2008, the period to 2017 is likely to see food
prices remain high compared to the 1990s. The danger is that the
lessons of last year will be too easily forgotten. Needless to
say high food prices hit poor households especially hard, because
they spend the highest proportion of their budgets on food.
3. Another vital technical area in which
there is serious underinvestment is arsenic contamination of ground
water. The arsenic occurs naturally in the lower layers of the
soil, but heavy drawdown for drinking water and irrigation has
brought it to the surface, where it contaminates both drinking
water and irrigated crops, particularly rice. This is an area
in which a donor could invest in devising cheap simple technologies
that really help the poor, but this is not happening to anything
like the required extent.
DFID'S SUPPORT
FOR MORE
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE
AND INSTITUTION
BUILDING IN
BANGLADESH
4. I have insufficient first-hand knowledge
to offer further comment on this topic.
DFID'S STRATEGY
FOR REDUCING
POVERTY AND
INEQUALITY, INCLUDING
GENDER INEQUALITY
5. DFID's strategy in Bangladesh is strongly
focused on reducing poverty and inequality, and there is a particularly
sharp focus on gender issues (as in "Women and Girls First").
This is highly appropriate, as the levels of poverty and deprivation,
particularly in rural areas are very high. It is widely acknowledged—including
in the PRSP and other government documents—that women and
girls suffer from intra-household discrimination in a number of
areas, including the allocation of food, and especially in times
of dearth. Female-headed households are also particularly vulnerable
to food insecurity. DFID-Bangladesh has been at the forefront
of efforts to address this situation.
6. At a more central level, however, DFID
should be rather more mindful of the fact that a sharp focus on
the most disadvantaged segments of the population has important
implications for the timescale of its operations. There are no
"quick fix" solutions. It is particularly difficult
to reach and support those who need it most, and any effort to
help them raise themselves from the mire must be long-term. This
means that the standard evaluation criteria for interventions—relevance,
efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability—particularly
the last—should be reinterpreted to take the scale and depth
of the problem into account.
THE MANAGEMENT
OF CLIMATE
CHANGE IMPACTS
AND SUPPORT
FOR DISASTER
RISK REDUCTION
7. DFID-Bangladesh takes support for disaster
risk reduction seriously, as witness its sustained support for
the multi-donor Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme.
It also employs a highly-gifted local professional as a specialist
on climate change (CC).
8. The global debate on CC is emotionally
highly-charged and sometimes driven more by assumptions than hard
evidence. It is widely assumed that Bangladesh is particularly
vulnerable to CC because it is a low-lying delta and therefore
especially at risk to flooding and coastal erosion, and that CC-induced
rises in sea levels will permanently submerge coastal areas of
the country and low-lying areas around major river systems. While
there is truth in this, it is also the case that Bangladesh is
simultaneously gaining land. The country's landmass was largely
formed by mass wasting in the Himalayas (caused by tectonic processes)
and the accretion of the resulting materials downstream, transported
to the delta by the river system. Recent work on this topic has,
inter alia, used satellite imagery to measure the net changes
in the longer term, and the data indicate that, while in some
parts the country there is a net loss of land, in other large
areas there is net gain. Overall there seems to have been a small
net gain. Impacts will be different in different areas, and so
different countermeasures will be required to address them. I
have to add that these remarks address the general situation with
respect to perceptions of the CC issue insofar as it affects Bangladesh.
I do not know sufficient about DFID-Bangladesh's work on climate
change at the moment to be able to say to what extent these issues
have been taken into account in their interventions.
THE ROLE
OF COMMUNITY-LED
INITIATIVES IN
REDUCING POVERTY
AND INCREASING
ACCESS TO
BASIC SERVICES
9. "Community" is very positively-charged
word, but it is not normally the case in Bangladesh that simply
because people live in the same village they can be regarded as
a "community" in any meaningful sense. In each village,
particularly in the mainstream (non-tribal) areas, there are rich
and poor, landlords and tenants, land-surplus households and landless
households, moneylenders and money borrowers, etc. Elite capture
of benefits is a distinct possibility if villages are regarded
as relatively homogeneous `communities'. I believe that DFID-Bangladesh
is well aware of the dangers, but it is worth reminding ourselves
that are sometimes powerful vested interests to be confronted
in the development process. The use of the phrase "community-led
initiatives in reducing poverty and increasing access to basic
services" suggests a need to underscore this point.
Bangladesh experience:
— As Senior Research Fellow at the University
of Reading, led ODA-funded study of farm mechanisation in Bangladesh
1978-79.
— Worked as agricultural economics advisor
to the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, 1980-86; simultaneously
served as informal advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture (employed
by the Agricultural Development Council Inc, New York);
— Worked as a consultant in Bangladesh
for various donors and other agencies, including DFID-B, Danida,
the European Commission and FAO (1995-2009).
Gerard J Gill, PhD
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