The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Discussants at a roundtable yesterday expressed concern over the growing gap in implementation of the PRSP and stressed the need for developing home grown development strategies to take the country out of poverty.

The proper implementation monitoring of the PRSP (Poverty reduction strategy paper) is also absent, they said pointing to a situation where it is failing from its course of achieving development targets, they observed.

The event organised by the Equity and Justice Working Group (EJWG) laid emphasis on the rights of common people to find place at the centre of the development process as the discussants said the PRSP remained largely a donor driven agenda ignoring many local priorities.

Former MP GM Quader, Dr Hassan Mahmud of Awami League, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed of BNP, Executive Director of Manusher Jannya Shaheen Anam and Executive Director of Onnesha Rashed Al-Titumir, among others, spoke on the occasion. President of the EJWG Rezaul Karim Chowdhury was in the chair.

The discussants voiced critical on the absence of any mid- term and long-term development planning such as five-year planning and opined that no nation can achieve the desired prosperity depending on the development agenda advanced by the donor nations.

Moreover, the PRSP, they said, has become outdated and its renewal remained hanged over in absence of fresh initiatives both by the government and the donors.

They, however, emphasised the need for using the good opportunities that the PRSP has offered to the nation while striving to switch to new plans for development and the politicians should play their role in shaping the future course of the nation, they said.

The politicians should create new dreams for development and create new mechanism to translate these dreams by developing enhanced capacity and institutions.

The country should have also better skills to negotiate and overcome undue external pressures on its economy and attempts of vested quarters to take way natural resources, they said.