A 'road map to development'

Recently the ruling coalition's "Road Map to Development" purports to do the same -- inform the countrymen of its achievements in various fields during its five years in office. What I fail to understand is, why is it that you have to tell the countrymen what you have achieved through the pages of the newspapers? If your development works, and all the achievements that you claim have taken place are real, and if they have impacted on the lives of the people they should be there for the people themselves to see, enjoy and cherish! Perhaps it is sometimes judicious to put all your achievements down in black and white lest the people, given their forgetful nature, let those slip from their minds.

One must, however, admit that the title of the supplement, "Roadmap to Development," shows that the government is not hesitant to acknowledge that much is yet to be realized, in spite of the claims of all the achievements so far. However, the purpose of this piece is not to seek the reasons for such an exercise but to dwell, in a bit more detail, on the achievements of the last five years that the government has projected through the media, and see if there is a reason that we should feel good about it.

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The part on the human development is very impressive, but ones attention cannot but be drawn to the section that speaks so volubly on labour welfare reforms. The havoc that one saw perpetrated in the RMG sector in May this year hardly substantiates the government's claim. There are grounds to believe that our labour force is yet to benefit from the welfare reforms.

One also wonders whether we should rejoice in the fact that in the last five years 54 private universities have been registered. The fact is that many have failed the test of proficiency and six are being asked to close down finally. One wonders whether there are more than the six that deserve to be shut down?

The investment in poverty reduction is impressive, but as a citizen one would much rather be informed about the percentage of the poor that managed to escape the poverty trap in the last five years. It would also be very helpful to know what percentage of the allotted amount in this sector has actually been spent on the poverty reduction projects. The Tuesday edition of The Daily Star report, quoting the latest Household Expenditure Survey that "Poverty has significantly reduced in five years since 2000 by 8.9 percentage points to 40 percent, but the rich-poor gap has widened further," says it all.

Can we can feel good about the 6.75 percent growth, as against the projected 6 percent? Not being one versed in the intricacies of economics let me only say that economic growth has very little relevance to development unless it can be ensured that the effect of growth percolates down to the lowest level, i.e. growth is equitably distributed. So while we may feel satisfied with the growth figures the economist may still suggest that there is more to mere growth for the people to derive benefit from.

The "Forward Looking Foreign Policy" piece makes very interesting reading, too. If we take the assertion that the ''thrust of the foreign policy during the last five years has been constructive engagement with all other countries, particularly in South Asia,'' there is very little to show for it. The piece, except for a passing reference to India, makes no mention of the state of bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India, which remains the most important foreign policy challenge for Bangladesh. One must ponder why our bilateral relations have remained at very low ebb, with the irritants continuing to impair our relationship, for which India must also share part of the responsibility.

Our much-vaunted "Look-East" policy has brought very little dividend by way of increased investment or export. And the greatest act of inept planning that created mistrust in the minds of one of our closest friends is to have permitted Taiwan to set up a trade centre in Dhaka, which was, of course, closed down later. We missed the highway to the rest of the world by missing out on the Trans-Asian highway. It is not that our stand on the issue was flawed, but we could not manage to take our friends on board to support our position. However, a redeeming feature has been our participation in the UN Peacekeeping operations that has not only elevated our international standing, but has fetched us a good deal of foreign currency also.

The piece on security, quite understandably, echoes the government position on its achievements. Perhaps the greatest threat to our security will stem from internal developments, particularly from the religious radicals who have a very amorphous idea of what they want to achieve, yet resort to violence in the so called cause of Islam. We must distinguish between violence, law and order and terrorism, which I am afraid the policy makers have lumped together. This was so evident in a minister's recent remark that RAB has been able to address the issue of terrorism successfully. While the law and order related violence is the exclusive territory of the police and the RAB, it will not be entirely for them alone to ensure the end of terrorism in the country, although theirs will be a complementary role in that effort. We shall have to address the issue in its proper perspective to ensure that demand and supply side of terrorism equation is effectively addressed.

What is notable in the supplement is the absence of any mention about the performance of the power sector. If power is the vehicle of development, not to let the public in on how we fared in this sector is very curious indeed.

The author is Editor, Defense & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.