Participation and representation key to pro-poor planning

Fahmida Khatun
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Why participation
During the last decade or so creating a policy space where representatives of all sections of people can participate has become one of the greatest challenges in the development discourse. The policy makers have increasingly recognized that development policies have differential impact on different sections and classes of people in a country. This varying impact is due to exclusion of the needs of some people from the policy focus which again is partly due to differences in levels of participation and extent of representation in the policy process. However, for an effective and equity enhancing development, proactive and participatory citizens are important elements. Participatory development policy is also a crucial factor for good governance. The quality of public programmes and policies is believed to improve through engagement of citizens in the policy making process and their implementation.

Bangladesh with a stable growth rate and a somewhat resilient economy has been striving for long to achieve a growth which will ensure equity and social justice. While Bangladesh has made impressive achievements in a number of areas such as increase in life expectancy, access to drinking water, reduction in infant mortality it is lagging behind in fulfilling a number of targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations. Though the incidence of poverty has been declining over the years inequality continues to be a disturbing phenomenon in the development process of the country. The national head count ratio of poverty declined to 40 percent in 2005 from 48.9 percent in 2000 and from 56.6 percent in 1991 implying that the annual average rate of poverty reduction has been 1.9 percent during 1991-2000 and 3.6 percent during 2000-2005. This reduction in poverty, however, has not been accompanied by reduction in income inequality as the difference between the rich and the poor is still very high. In 2005 the top 5 percent possessed almost 27 percent of the total household income while the bottom 5 percent received only 0.77 percent of the income. The share of the bottom 5 percent has actually come down from 0.93 percent of total household income in 2000. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has increased from 0.39 in 1991 to 0.45 in 2000 and to 0.47 in 2005. The poverty and inequality situation calls not only for expanded measures within the pro-poor strategy of the government and more dynamism of the private sector to generate employment and support human development but also participation of the broader section of people in policies which are formulated for them.

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Past experience
After a long holiday of medium term plan the present Government of Bangladesh (GoB) is in the process of preparing the sixth Five Year Plan (FYP) for the period 2010-2015. According to the GoB this plan document will not be a traditional one which only includes sectoral allocations, list of projects and investment plan. It will rather project goals and targets, and explore alternative strategies for reaching them. The GoB also mentioned in its national budget for fiscal year 2009-10 that the plan will contain the projected savings and investment and public expenditure, the role of public and private sectors and the requirement for institutional structure. The medium term plan will contribute to the process of implementing the long term Perspective Plan (2010-2021).

At present the country is implementing the second round of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) which was prepared in October 2008 and has been revised by the new government in August 2009. The revision has been done in order to reflect the policies to be undertaken by the government to fulfil their commitments to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality and reflect other issues included in its election manifesto. In line with its commitments the document underscored the need for making Bangladesh a digital one to achieve its objectives. Special emphasis has also been put on power and energy, rural development, women's advancement, and social protection and inclusion. The five priority areas for medium term action are: maintenance of macroeconomic stability and control over commodity price hike; effective action against corruption; adequacy in power and energy; elimination of poverty and inequality; and, establishment of good governance. The revised NASPR II will remain in force until 2011 and will be reviewed and monitored. The continuation has been considered basically to facilitate implementation of ongoing programmes.

Designing a development policy involves identification of specific goals and targets, formulation of activities against each goal and estimation resource requirements. During the last few years such needs were being fulfilled by the PRSP which basically was prepared under the guidance of the donors to access concessional loans. As is known, the idea of PRSP originated from the failure of the structural adjustment policy (SAP) in the mid eighties and nineties. Even after implementing SAP several countries remained in poverty and fell into the category of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) who were unable to pay their debt back to the creditors and needed a new modality for coming out of their indebtedness and poverty. This led the donors to devise an alternate nationally owned participatory poverty reduction strategy which would be the basis of their concessional loans. This was also considered for determining the eligibility for debt relief under the HIPC initiative. Though Bangladesh has not been included in HIPC it had to prepare PRSP to avail Poverty Reduction Grant Facility (PRGF) of the International Monetary Fund and Development Support Credit (DSC) of the World Bank once the tenure of the fifth FYP (1997-2002) was completed. This time donors emphasised on a country driven and partnership oriented policy initiative.

However, as in other countries, the Bangladesh PRSP has been an issue for discussion among experts, academics, civil society organizations, NGOs and other informed stakeholders. Discussions hovered around the formulation process, participatory nature and contents of the document. A review of literature on the performance of PRSPs in other countries reveals that the criticisms of this strategy paper have been sharper and stronger than appreciation as their limitations outweigh the success in terms of involving people in the policy process and exhibiting any tangible improvement in the lives of the people.

Whose participation

Tomzid Mollick/drik News

The reason for failure of the so called participatory policy process is the lack of the realization that participation itself is not useful, who participates is more critical. Without participation of the right people no change will be visible in the policy paradigm, and unless participation results in policy change the credibility of such participation is lost. Participation will not lead to poverty reduction unless it is inclusive in nature with representation of both the powerless and the powerful. Nor will it work unless political will is in place. Though PRSP opened up some space for participation it has also been criticized for leaving behind a larger constituency who is part of the development process and thus suffers from limited participation. Members of various sections of the society such as NGOs, lawyers, media, religious leaders, school teachers, local traders, chairman and members of the union parishad and political activists were consulted as part of the civil society participants. However, the systemic inclusion of the parliament was absent in the whole process as MPs were not consulted as a separate group and the document was not debated in the parliament.

Participatory process should also begin from the initial stage of conceptualization and designing and continue to formulation as well as implementation phases. Symbolic participation of the civil society organizations, grass roots level representatives or the private sector and lawmakers tend to be unrepresentative. In this regard a two-pronged approach is necessary for an effective participation. On the one hand, there is a need to ensure participation of the capable members who can make substantive contributions and can deal with the issues discussed in an informed manner. It is not the number of consultations but the quality of consultation which is the best indicator of participation. Participation of a range of competent actors in the entire process of public policy making, implementation and monitoring and evaluation can improve the quality of the policy. They can share their intellect and make informed recommendations based on their knowledge of social and political dynamics.

On the other hand, it is also important to involve a large section of common people who possess accumulated experiences from the field level. Consultations before preparation of any important national documents were not so common in Bangladesh. The national FYPs used to be circulated and discussed after their preparation among a select group of people who were mainly experts. The issue of participation has been set aside on the ground that not everyone in the country is aware of economic and social issues and, therefore, wide participation would not result in any intelligent discussions on policies. Such conviction is flawed on several grounds. First, it is totally wrong to underestimate the intellect and insight of the common people. Even with less or no education and no exposure to policy documents they can have the full understanding of the issues which are very crucial for development. Second, public participation is required not only for substantive discussion but also for educating people on issues which are of critical importance to the country and making them conscious citizens. Third, it is also a way of establishing ownership of policies which can facilitate effective implementation of policies. Fourth, participation improves transparency and accountability of programmes which are undertaken for the poor which can reduce wastage of national resources to a large extent and increase availability of government services. Fifth, as the right to information (RTI) act is now in place in Bangladesh it is all the more important to share all policy matters with people. One way of doing so is to improve participation and representation in policy process, no matter how chaotic and disruptive it may sound to policy makers.

Looking ahead
The foremost objective of the first FYP (1973-78) which was prepared after the independence of Bangladesh by the then Awami League (AL) government was poverty reduction through expansion of employment opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed, accelerated growth of national income, and effective fiscal and pricing policies for the equitable distribution of income. As we embark on the sixth FYP this year, these objectives are still unmet. With a per capita income of USD690 the country is struggling to meet the basic needs of people at the domestic front and waiting in the long queue to be graduated from the least developed country (LDC) category at the global level. In 1973 as the war affected country needed a development policy guideline at the earliest the first FYP did not have time to make the planning process a participatory one. Also the discontinuation of the political regime in 1975 hampered the implementation of many of its promises spelt out in the plan. The long awaited sixth FYP which will incidentally be formulated and implemented by the AL government can now utilize the opportunity to engage wider section of people in the planning process to prepare the ground for fulfilling its Vision 2021. This way the plan document can be made useful towards achieving a long term sustainable development through poverty reduction and can be a vehicle to fulfill the aspirations of the teeming millions of the country who are indeed the champions of change.

Dr Fahmida Khatun is an Economist at the Centre for Policy Dialogue and Director, Janata Bank Ltd.

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