The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr. M. S. Haq

A brief analysis of media (print, electronic, others) reports, from time to time in recent times, on developmental activities (etc.) of resident donor organizations in Bangladesh would reveal inter alia: performances of UNDP in the country, under the stewardship of resident representative Ms. Renata Dessallien, have apparently been trailing behind performances of other resident donor organizations such as the World Bank, USAID, UNICEF and WFP in certain substantive areas of the country's development at local, national and other levels. It now appears to me UNDP-Dhaka is perhaps suffering from a kind of illness in above areas that would require an immediate and effective clinical attention, among other things.

One of the concerns here is, a failure on the part of UNDP - a predominantly grant based development support organization - to maximize, on a continuous basis, the return on investment in areas say, poverty reduction and human development could affect, in a negative fashion and among other things, the donors' confidence, motivation and participation in a somewhat crumbling domain of development related grant businesses.

Further, factors such as and as appropriate - -

1. a continually poor management of aid money and other aid resources by poor countries;

2. a continuous holding of shares by aid givers, aid takers, aid intermediaries and concerned others (used in a wider sense) in almost unaccounted for aid money and other aid resources in concerned countries;

3. a continually unacceptable wastage of aid money and other aid resources at policy, program, implementation and other levels of say, donor supported local and national programs - due, among other things, to reluctance on the part of donor countries, program countries, beneficiaries and concerned others to change for better in a timely, collective and result oriented manner for optimization of mutual benefits in relevant areas (per se), a general lack of futuristic elements in donor driven programs, and a dearth of breakthroughs in areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and technology associated with local developments and world developments, to mention a few;

3. an impending global recession and its impact on aid economy, in particular on grant economy;

4. the need for what I would call development and implementation of more balanced and result-oriented interfaces between development loan approaches and development grant approaches and vice versa for bringing about more ownership, more accountability, more realism (I mean, developmental realism) and more return than that at present in the domain of external aid and cooperation at state, people and other levels;

5. Development programs focusing on areas for example, poverty, hunger, climate change, human rights, human development and governance are yet to benefit maximally from outcomes of for example, cross-fertilization of pertinent comparative, competitive and other advantages of donor countries, client countries, beneficiaries and concerned others in a harmonized and sustainable manner and to the satisfaction of all stakeholders - at least to an acceptable extent. I believe the shortfall mentioned above is, at this point in time, one of the core challenges to efforts towards what I would call - a 'full' globalization of development;

6. failures on the part of aid managers, aid workers, aid beneficiaries and other aid stakeholders to harnessing and recycling maximally the product of chain reactions of forward, backward, sideway and other linkages of pertinent development programs - in pursuits of for example enhancing quality impacts of development programs at a minimal cost on concerned beneficiaries at least throughout their life time, for an instance; and

7. an average lack of commitment on the part of all concerned to build upon existing capacities (as feasible) on a continuous basis in pursuits of for example, helping world poor to help themselves - - could pose inter alia a formidable challenge to for example UNDP supported national programs in Bangladesh and else where in the world, as appropriate.

I believe the ongoing effort of UN Secretary-General Moon, members of UN teams, the World Bank (WB) and other development partners, member countries of UN including inter alia the US, India and Japan, and concerned others towards UN reforms - used in a wider sense - would focus on, among other things, growing short falls in the development dimension of the big UN. In that respect, it is expected UN, WB, governments and others will step up their effort towards for example delivering, in the near future, products of development - wrapped up fully (I mean, as required) in developmental synergies - to beneficiaries at local, national, regional, global and other levels.

I also believe UN resident coordinator (in Bangladesh) Mrs. Renata Dessallien and her team should focus - at this critical hour of the country's history - on inter alia: how best and quickest the UN system in Bangladesh could, in a non-partisan manner, assist maximum number of Bangladeshis in their effort towards exercising their voting rights in the election - slated for December 2008 - without any problem and to their maximum satisfaction.

The last word: UN should not be seen violating what it stands for. Let us work towards that with strong commitments, determinations and foresightedness and in an intelligent, as well as sustainable manner.