The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mahfuzur Rahman

Ranju Mia, a spirited young man of a sleepy village in Gaibandha district, still cannot forget the day when he had to stop going to school due to poverty. Things could have been different in his life had he been able to continue his studies. Even then he has not given up.

"I've buried all my agonies with a new dream -- removing poverty from my village. It's my war against (the vicious cycle of) poverty,"says Ranju, a resident of Amjhukirpar village on the bank of Lenga Khal at Laxmipur union in Sadar upazila.

A father of two children, Ranju now makes sanitary ring-slabs for sale apart from his carpentry work. He started the business with a small amount of money he got by selling his cow.

Ranju recalls: "I had bought a cow at Tk 4,000 I got from the Social Development Foundation (SDF) in 2005 as seed money after receiving vocational training. And I didn't look back since then. I reared the cow and sold it off when it got a calf and invested the money in my ring-slab business.''

Ranju's father Mansur Ali, in his early 80s, is a vegetable vendor. He started the small business with Tk 4,000 he received from SDF as a member of the most vulnerable group of the village. "Whatever I earn by hawking vegetables is not enough for me and my wife. So, my eldest son, Ranju, helps me whenever I need money,''Mansur says.

Ranju also donated a valuable piece of land in front of his house for the construction of an office for Gram Samiti, one of the important village institutions being built by the SDF.

The SDF's main programme is the Social Investment Program Project (SIPP), a government-led initiative supported by the World Bank. SDF has conceptualised the programme to address the extreme poverty as outlined in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of the government of Bangladesh.

The project was launched on a pilot basis in April, 2003 in Gaibandha and Jamalpur, the two most impoverished districts of Bangladesh. It is being implemented with Community Driven Development (CDD) approach that gives communities the control over planning, decisions making and investment resources. Its main objective is to develop effective financing and institutional arrangements at community level for improving their access to local infrastructures and basic services through community-driven small-scale infrastructures and social assistance.

Under the programme, villagers form development committees identify community priorities and chalk out small projects that benefit the hardcore poor (HCP) and poor.

So far, nearly 2 million people of Gaibandha and Jamalpur districts have been benefited from the project in terms of infrastructure development, seed capital, village development programme, skill development for employment, social advocacy support and utility services, particularly piped water supply in arsenic-affected rural areas.

Unlike the conventional micro-credit system by NGOs and MFIs (Micro-finance Institutions), the village institutions being built under SIPP are entrusted with the task of making savings and operating internal lending.

The village institutions are Gram Parishad, Gram Samiti, Sanchaya Sangrakkhan Committee (SSC), Village Credit Organisation (VCO) and Jibikayan Group. Jibikayan Group is formed with hardcore poor and poor members of a village, and this is the core group among all.

Describing the special features of SIPP, SDF Consultant for Community Financing Shafayet Hossain said the scope of misuse of fund or building personal/self-capital by any individual and or institution is minimal under this community financing system due to continuous monitoring by the community itself.

Shafayet said this community financing ensures quick empowerment of the rural poor and there is little scope for exploitation by any individual institution.

He said, "If the poor villagers are given financial support and access to information, they can effectively organize themselves to identify community priorities and address local problems by working in partnership with other supportive institutions. In essence, the Community Finance emphasises building financial service providers by the HCP community members for future so that they can provide financial services to the HCP and poor at reasonable rate and cost, and offshoot all rural impediments to access to credit.''

While visiting the SIPP areas in Jamalpur in March this year, World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hoped that the poor villagers would be able to fight out poverty and assured that the Bank would continue its support in this regard.

"Poverty cannot be eliminated overnight; it takes time. But, I do believe you (villagers) will win your fight against poverty and the World Bank is with you,"she told a group of villagers during her visit to Sonakata in Jamalpur.

Overwhelmed by the success of the poor villagers in the SIPP areas, World Bank's Communication Adviser in New Delhi Sudip Mazumder said, "I hope this success (shown by the poor people in Bangladesh) can be replicated far and wide."

Meanwhile, the Social Development Foundation has set up 26 cluster offices in Gaibandha and Jamalpur districts, 13 in each district, aiming to infuse dynamism into its SIPP activities and ensure better participation of the beneficiaries in the programme.