Transcript Session 5 - IFIs as if people mattered

IFIs as if People Mattered
Voice and Mobilisation for Reforms
Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir
House: 40/A, Road: 10/A, Dhanmondi, Dhaka–1209, Bangladesh
Tel: 880-2-815 82 74, Fax: 880-2- 815 9135
E-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.unnayan.org
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3
Development is inherently a normative
concept…..To pretend otherwise is just to hide
one’s value judgments.
Seers 1972:4
Knowing the past and planning the future
Less has become more…
Bangladesh: Share of Trade, Aid and Remittance in GDP
35
30
Percentage
25
20
15
10
5
Share of Trade in GDP
Share ofYear
Aid in GDP
-0
4
20
03
-0
2
20
01
-0
0
19
99
-9
8
19
97
-9
6
19
95
-9
4
19
93
-9
2
19
91
-9
0
19
89
-8
8
19
87
-8
6
19
85
-8
4
19
83
-8
2
81
19
19
79
-8
0
0
Share of Remittances in GDP
Less has become more…
• The paradox is that less intervention in theory has meant
more intervention in practice.
• A brief initial moment of market triumphalism in the early
1980s (get the prices right), it became evident that a few
decisive strokes of policy to roll back states and liberate
markets was not enough.
• Freeing the market escalated into an extraordinarily
ambitious, or grandiose, project of social engineering - the
pursuit of ‘good governance’ quickly extended to, and
embraced, notions of ‘civil society’ and social institutions
• The major shifts of development theory, policy discourse
and design, and modalities of intervention in the period of
neo-liberal ascendancy, spearheaded by the World Bank,
scaled up to encompass the reshaping, or transformation, of
political and social (and, by implication, cultural) as well as
economic institutions and practices
The king can do no wrong…
Making of Bank and the Fund above the Law in Bangladesh
• The IFIs are protected from every form of legal process [Art. 8A.
(a)];
• The businesses are allowed to bring action against the IFIs in cases
arising out of transactions [Art. 8A. (a)];
• Person, agency, entity, directly or indirectly are barred from
seeking judicial proceedings and remedy (see 8A. (b) in the Box –
1);
• The beneficiaries of this legislation are: World Bank group
[International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
and International Development Association (IDA)]; IMF
(International Monetary Fund); and businesses (e.g. lenders,
guarantors, security companies) (Expalnation); and
• The disenfranchised are: citizens of Bangladesh, especially the poor
and marginalised, and public-interest organisations (grassroots
organisations, trade unions, women groups, academia, litigators,
NGOs, etc.).
Source: IFI Watch Bangladesh, available at: www.unnayan.org
 Sovereignty of State, Citizenship, and Rights to Development
 The Democratic Deficit – Double Standards, Accountability
and Transparency
 Reasserting the Parliamentary Sovereignty
A people-centred parliament would embark upon:
 formulation of a new legislation providing the parliament with
the binding oversight powers including holding the
Bangladesh representatives at the IFIs accountable to such
committees;
 enactment of legislation to ensure all information relating to
projects is made public in a timely manner, and
 Creating mechanisms to facilitate the participation of the
people, especially affected communities, and civil society in the
design of IFIs' country strategies, programmes and projects.
 Establishment of a mechanism ensuring that affected person(s)
receive remedy.
CONDITIONALITY – AN ILLUSTRATION
TYPE OFREFORM SPECIFIC STEP TAKEN
GENERAL IMPACT
Liberalization
Reduction of Tariff barrier
Export led industry
Floating Exchange rate
Reduction of Subsidy
Increase in input price
Problem in BoP, Inflation,
Closing down of medium
And small local industries
Reduction of value in the Value
chain
Revised tax
structure
Introduction of Indirect tax
base
Tax burden on the general people
Efficient
government
Down size of the
Government
Shut down of the state
enterprises
Decrease in the investment leading
to concretionary policy, since
Government in the developing
countries is the biggest investor
Decrease in the employment due
to the closing of state owned
industry
Redefined role – Authorship of policies to provider of finance international
public goods
Policy Space – National Planning Process (not PRSP) – Paris?/?
Slippery Slopes…
Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project
• Global Environmental Facility – USD 12.2 Million
• Nordic Development Fund – USD 4.5 Million
• ADB Grant for Khulna Newspaper Mill – USD 0.57
Million
• ADB Loan – SDR – 26.9 Million
 Suspended
– Burden – the people of Bangladesh
 Design or Implementation Failure
System of Arbitration – Dispute Settlement Body
The Reverse Order ….
The electorate/taxpayers, north
NORTH
accountability
accountability
funds
Government
accountability
funds
funds
Multilateral development agency
Bilateral development agencies
accountability
accountability
funds
Government
NGOs
accountability
accountability
funds
Ministries of Finance
funds
Line ministries
funds
accountability
funds
PMUs / executing agencies
Executing agencies / local
government
accountability
accountability
SOUTH
funds
The poor in the south
funds
Pursuing Common Goals?
• A widespread donor view that the solution to poor services
lies in increased partnership or interaction between
government, NGOs, community organizations and for-profit
providers
• An area of contention between independent actors with
structurally and ideologically different perspectives on the
means and ends of public action but who, nonetheless, are
engaged in public action through shared organizational
arrangements.
• The factors that condition the definitions of public action by
government and non-governmental actors.
• How their different goals are managed and controlled
through alternative forms of contractual and non-contractual
organizational arrangements.
• How the characteristics of the service sectors under
examination influence the perspectives of actors and the
different possible forms of collaborations between
organizations.
The Empire
• SWAP – Banks in HNPSP and PEDP
• Joint CAS – Banks, DFID, Japan
• the Unicef or the Unesco are not in charge
of education nor the WHO coordinates the
health and nutrition policies and
programmes
• USAID
A Simple Schema of Issues
Development Assistance
INTERESTS
Trade, Diplomacy, Regional Interest,
Historical Connection and Colonial past
Ownership
Institutional reform
Participation – Design and
Implementation
Good policy
CONCERNS
Growth, Poverty Reduction, Wellbeing
Accountability (Horizontal
and Vertical)
Selectivity
Reform and
conditionalities
Individual
Society
Individual
Choice and
Development
Structural
Change and
Development
Social Individual
(Individuals are independent of,
dependent on; interdependent
within society)
Ideas
Mobilisation
Praxis
Development and
Democracy
Knowledge,
Praxis and
Progress