A Bangladeshinfo.com Analysis

DBangladesh is being used as one of happy hunting grounds for dumping the prescriptions coming out of the fertile brains of million-dollar consultants of the multilateral lending agencies.

They used to use all the euphemism of altruism for making the good of what was earlier called the white men's burden, the third world countries like Bangladesh, in exchange of nothing but consultancy fees, payments of debt and debt servicing, and persistent dependency of the recipients on external loan.

The name of the latest capsule is Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), a new condition imposed on the countries looking for external assistance or foreign aid in other words, and Bangladesh is assigned to make its PRSP to get loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The draft of the PRSP has already been prepared and it identified a number of gray areas of the country alongside the immense potentials in various sectors - all well known not only to the policymakers but also the people in general. The euphemistic talks by the well-wishers of the country should have made it a highly developed nation by the time, but the reality is far from a take-off stage.

The question of PRSP came after the fiasco of the lenders' previous prescription called structural adjustment policy (SAP) in the 1980s and 1990s. And many critics say they (multilateral lending agencies) have now come up with a new name within which it is all the old things of SAP.

Although Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman assured adequate debate and discussion on PRSP to be opened before the masses soon, economists and a few civil society members expressed their apprehension that there could be something fishy in the process of making PRSP only by the consultants appointed by the Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance.

To save their own skins too, the so-called donors or development partners this time suggested inclusion of the homegrown ideas in development programmes of the PRSP, fucussing on the most "fashionable word" in the discriminatory economic order - POVERTY - with Bangladesh being again an ideal place for the salable socio-political and economic phenomena of poverty.

Whereas the WB and IMF are so cautious about their possible failure in the suggested programmes, the critics questioned the motive of such prescription. Some say the donors would not bear the liability of the PRSP despite their stress on preparation of it.

As fallout of the PRSP, the popular programme of five-year plan has almost withered away at the moment. Also, the finance minister's projected revenue earning is largely dependent on the prospect of the PRSP and how the donors look at it. The country is given a few months time to complete the process of PRSP to declare itself ready for drawing credit money from the bank of lenders.

"I do not believe in this kind of PRSP. I believe in the people's PRSP," said noted economist Prof Mozaffar Ahmad who termed the latest wave of WB-IMF-backed prescription as the second version of SAP, which caused enough damage to the countries like Bangladesh.

Economists namely Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Dr Moinul Islam and Prof MM Akash wanted to make the PRSP public since it is Bangladesh, which will have to bear the liability of the whole thing at the end of the day. Will the people get fair chance to take part in the preparation of PRSP or will it be a top-down process?

Even if a "people's PRSP" is at hand, the fate of getting loans in reasonable terms will depend on the bargaining capacity of the country's elected leaders to be backed by the people's support. Otherwise, an alienated form of PRSP will just be an extension of SAP with failures on the record book.