Bangladesh Studies

The Independent Review of Bangladesh's Development (IRBD) 2000 is the fifth of the series which was launched in 1995 when the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) pioneered an annual review of the state of Bangladesh's development. The IRBD exercise has by now established itself as one of the principal sources of reliable data and quality analysis pertaining to critical developmental issues in Bangladesh.

Providing microcredit to the poor has become an important antipoverty scheme in many countries. Microcredit helps the poor become self-employed and thus generates income and reduces poverty. In Bangladesh, these programs reach about five million poor households. But microcredit programs are just one of many ways of reducing poverty. Are these programs cost-effective? This book addresses the question, drawing on the experience of the well-known microcredit programs of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank, the Rural Development-12 project, and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee.

This important book deals with two issues: the emancipation of the Third World from the debt system and the re-appropriation of development by civil society through financial self-reliance. The author begins by analyzing the failure of 50 years of externally financed development. He shows how the foreign aid system- has had the perverse effect of downplaying the role of domestic savings and creating a chronic economic and technological dependency. It also subverted the political process in many countries by giving birth to a new class which Gelinas calls the aristocracy.

Annual budgets in developing countries in general are historically regarded as the intellectual output of the ivory tower economists and policy planners of these countries. It has been no different in Bangladesh where the budget-making process has largely remained a non-participatory exercise in terms of interacting with the representatives of the poorer sections of the society. The present work critically examines the annual budgets in Bangladesh with particular focus on the social sector and attempts to capture the perceptions of the poor people.