The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The World Bank attaches tough conditions with their loans and grants to Bangladesh and also puts pressure to implement those, according to a research the UNCTAD quoted in its report released yesterday.

"More than two-thirds of loans and grants (71 per cent) from the IDA still have sensitive policy reforms attached to them," said the research.

The report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was launched simultaneously from across the world at a time when executives of the Bretton Woods Institutions were literally in a campaign that they were not dictating policy, but supporting country priorities.

The report, however, mentioned that both the World Bank and the IMF have made major efforts in the last few years to reduce the intrusive and negative effects of policy conditionality.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) executive director Prof Mustafizur Rahman presented the highlights of the UNCTAD report titled "LDCs Report 2008: Growth, Poverty and the Terms of Development Partnership" to the press at the CPD Thursday.

The research (EURODAD, 2007) found that on average, the IDA loans contained six privatization-related conditions each and in case of Bangladesh, it was related to the privatization of healthcare system.

The UNCTAD report said the case studies of conditionality in relation to privatization and liberalization in Bangladesh revealed a wide range of reactions.

"Some government officials (in Bangladesh) pointed out that the policy agendas did not reflect government priorities and pressure was applied to implement the policies," it said.

The basic messages of the report was that the LDCs attained rapid growth but was not sustainable and inclusive, are vulnerable both as exporters and importers, suffer from food insecurity, many of their MDGs remain unattained, weak country ownership and need for different development model.

"Time has come to revisit the LDCs relations with the development partners for ensuring country ownership in any development programme," said Prof Mustafiz.

The UNCTAD report expected that Bangladesh would graduate from the LDC group to middle-income country in next 17 years from 2008 if it sustains a growth rate between 6.5 per cent and 6.7 per cent.

But, the report expressed doubt whether Bangladesh would be able to sustain the growth level of 6.5 percent achieved in FY 2005-06.

Prof Mustafiz, however, expects, "We'll be able to accelerate our growth and we'll not have to wait for such long time to come out of the LDC group."