Credit and conscientization: Effects of different development approaches in Bangladesh
| Published date | 01 May 1993 |
| Author | H. K. Arefeen,Marium Nafisa,Hasina Ahmed,Pieter H. Streefland,Dalem Ch. Barman |
| Date | 01 May 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230130205 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 13,153-169 (1993)
Credit and conscientization: effects
of
different development
approaches in Bangladesh
PIETER
H.
STREEFLAND
Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
and
HASINA AHMED, MARIUM NAFISA, DALEM
CH.
BARMAN AND
H.K.
AREFEEN
University
of
Dhaka
SUMMARY
This article provides a comparative description and analysis of medium-term effects of two
development approaches geared towards poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. One approach,
which was studied in a programme of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, empha-
sizes a combination of group formation, awareness building, saving and selective confrontation
with the rural elite. The other approach emphasizes provision of credit to the rural poor;
it was studied in an area where the Grameen Bank has been implementing its programme
since an early stage. The study on which the article is based included a mixture of qualitative
and quantitative research methods. It is a significant contribution to the development of
a study design and methodology for evaluative research focusing on gauging the effects of
interventions in settings characterized by a lack of baseline data.
INTRODUCTION
After Bangladesh became an independent nation in
1971
aid from abroad started
to
pour in. Initially, most of it was geared toward relief and reconstruction, but
in the course of time external assistance was directed more towards development
objectives. In addition to the support that goes to the government sector, there
has been substantial support for the activities of non-government development orga-
nizations (NGDOs). This has led to an explosive growth of the NGDO sector in
Bangladesh. Other factors that contributed to this growth were: the inadequacy
of the state to deal with the large-scale demands for relief in the wake of the war
of independence and of various calamities in the following years (floods, cyclones,
famines); considerable space to manoeuvre for the NGDOs because of breakdown
of state control; and the availability of a large cohort of motivated youths looking
for ways to realize political convictions and innovative ideas. All this came on top
Professor Streefland is at the Royal Tropical Institute, 63 Mauritskade, 1092 AD Amsterdam, The Nether-
lands.
His
co-authors are members
of
the Centre
for
Social Studies, University
of
Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangla-
desh. The study was financed by the Netherlands Minister
for
Development Cooperation. The authors
wish to thank the BRAC and Grameen Bank for their cooperation.
0271-2075/93/020153-17$13.50
0
1993
by John Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
154
P.
Streefand
et
al.
of a rich tradition of voluntary associations, which aim at improvement of their
members’ welfare.
Eventually the activities of
NGDOs
became geared less toward relief and more
toward rural development. In this respect, four policy directions may be distinguished.
Firstly, there originated two variants of integrated rural development projects:
a
‘middle of the road’ community development variant and an innovative variant.
The innovative strategy includes a focus on a target category (e.g. agricultural
labourers and their households), emphasis on awareness building and informal edu-
cation, organization of male and female groups, and selective use of confrontations
with the rural elite. Secondly, a variety of health programmes emerged (Briscoe,
1980). Thirdly, from the second half of the
1970s,
initiatives aimed at improving
the position of women increasingly gained importance. Fourthly, there has been
a rapid growth of credit programmes. These provide credit to small groups
of
men
and/or women who all belong to the rural poor (Maloney and Sharfuddin Ahmed,
1988).
Though evaluation reports abound, very little is known about the longer term
effects of the different development approaches inherent in the policy directions
mentioned above.’ As a contribution to filling this knowledge gap a study was
carried out in
1985/86.
The study contrasted two development approaches, one
emphasizing supply of credit to the rural poor, representative for the last policy
direction mentioned above, and one emphasizing conscientization, group formation,
saving and selective confrontation, which are the essential ingredients of the innova-
tive variant of the first policy direction.
As
baseline data about relevant socioeconomic
and political indicators were lacking, the study was designed to contrast households
and villages that had been participating in the development activities with those
from the immediate environment that had not. In this way it would, of course,
not be possible to measure the effects exactly, but if the intended effects of poverty
alleviation had been realized, they certainly could be traced. This article presents
results of the study (see also Streefland
et
al.,
1986).
As
evaluative studies of effects
of interventions are notoriously difficult the methodological aspects of the research
are dealt with extensively.
METHODOLOGY
The analytical
framework
First, the two approaches to be compared were operationalized. This was done by
searching for development projects whose approach came nearest to one
of
the ideal
types chosen for the contrast study. It was decided that project activities should
have been started at least
5
years earlier. The study focused on the position of
the rural poor as a dependent variable. Four different aspects of this position were
distinguished: economic, political, organizational and subjective. Consequently, these
aspects were operationalized by choosing indicators to direct the collection
of
data.
(a) The
economic aspect
was defined as the level at which a household is able
’
A
development approach may be defined as the combination
of
a problem analysis, the formulation
of
a solution
to
the problem and the specific interventions based on both.
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