A 45-year-old rickshaw-puller, Habibur Rahman, lost his only earning source during a blockade last December. The rickshaw was set on fire by demonstrators in Chittagong while two other people were nabbed for arson, including Habibur. Six months back, Habibur received a rickshaw from an NGO, working in Chittagong as part of their regular Income Generating Activities (IGA) while he was supposed to reimburse the actual cost of the rickshaw in the next two years with a small installment.
Many poor people across the country have also lost their lives, shelter, and assets, and been nabbed for arson and injured in strikes and blockades in the last three months.
Due to political unrest over the election, the whole economy was adversely affected while the implementation of development programs has gone down, foreign aid spending has slowed, and aid effectiveness has lost its balance across the nation, mostly at the field level.
The progress of the implementation of the Annual Development Program (ADP) in this financial year is likely to suffer a major setback due to the ongoing political unrest and violence. The implementation progress for the donor-driven projects in the first four months of the current fiscal year stood at 15% compared to 20% during the same of the preceding fiscal.
After his oath, the finance minister declared that the government planned to revise down the GDP growth outlook by around one percentage point, as he thought the previous target of 7.2% was too ambitious amid political volatility, while the World Bank estimates it will be less than 6%.
According to data from the Economic Relations Divisions (ERD) of Bangladesh, foreign disbursement increased only by 2% in the first five months of this fiscal year due to slow project implementation brought about by political turmoil.
Between July and November 2013, some $987 million in foreign aid was disbursed, which is only 29% of the target. Meanwhile, with the aim of speeding up implementation, the prime minister recently formed the fast track project monitoring committee to monitor the implementation of high value projects of national importance. All these statistics show some national level outlook, but what about the development projects?
Apart from the national level scenario, the country suffers from severe problems in the implementation of the project at the local level due to political instability which undermines the country’s development progress, and affects the lives of the marginalised segment of the communities directly.
Political unrest is viewed with grave concern by donors, who fear this instability could render development programs ineffective and are slowly reducing funds. The data reveals a significant drop in foreign aid commitment already, an almost 28% slip from $1.6 billion to $1.2 billion in 2014 (World Bank).
It is evident that the implementation of development projects are greatly hampered by the current political turmoil, which mostly focus on mass awareness raising, capacity-building of different level of stakeholders, advocacy, and lobbying.
Development organisations are frequently forced to postpone their scheduled programs, particularly capacity-building training, as the situation does not permit them to gather people in a certain place. The political turmoil had completely broken the communications between and among the development workers and the representatives of Local Government Institutions (LGIs).
Representatives of local government institutions are not interested in organising and participating in regular meetings as they feel it is not secure. It happens mostly in areas where representatives are in place from the opposition parties, mostly in the city corporation areas except Dhaka, as most of the mayor and the councillors are being elected from the oppositions. The observations from other Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and the Volunteer Groups are similar.
The development staff are in an immovable position due to this abnormal situation. Their movement to the field level has been stopped for the continuous strike and the blockade. They are using alternative ways, and make trips by rickshaws, autos, and vans, which are time consuming, costly, and hazardous.
They are facing difficulties to ensure the engagement of government officials, representatives, and CBO leaders in the upazila and district level events at different places, which create barriers to meet the objectives of the projects.
The current political unrest affects budget utilisation of the programs, as activities could not be implemented as per plan. Most projects have not achieved their targets while field teams have been forced to reorganise their plans on holidays, weekends, even strikes and blockades, which triggered their vulnerabilities in the workplace.
It is expected that a permanent solution will emerge, while government officials, local government representatives, and communities as a whole will regain the confidence to participate in the development process.
