Tackling rural poverty, together

Mushtaq Ahmed, Ph.D.

Economic Policy Advisor/Agriculture, Economic Development Division, Policy Branch, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Ottawa

A front-row seat to planning disasters and triumphs

Nater: So local conditions are the point of departure?

Ahmed: All donors know by now that you don’t get anywhere by just throwing equipment and instruction manuals at a rural development problem. We were doing that 30 years ago with the result that lots of expensive machinery soon broke down and stood rusting for lack of spare parts and training. A basic lesson has been that products, techniques and machinery from developed countries are only useful when they’re properly adapted to local, social, economic and environmental conditions.

On that subject, quite a few developing countries say that the environment is all very well, but development takes precedence.
Well, CIDA won’t dispute that. It’s true, the overarching goal is poverty reduction. But within this framework, you won’t get improved agricultural production and stable rural development without environmental sustainability, so it remains a key objective. Sustainable development of agriculture, and therefore achievement of the MDGs, needs proper understanding and careful balancing of the potential tradeoffs between economic, social and environmental objectives.

What’s Canada doing here, for example?
CIDA’s priorities are to reverse current trends of land degradation, promote integrated natural resource management at farm, community as well as watershed levels, and improve the efficient, effective use of water in farming. We’re doing a lot of work here under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Developing countries are also coming to understand that there’s a mass of complex environmental information out there that needs proper processing and efficient management information systems. Institutional strengthening and improving governance help partner organisations gather, share and analyse the information. This aids in a better understanding of the environment and in better planning.

How big a factor is good planning?
It’s crucial, and I’ve seen that first-hand. The 1987 National Master Plan for Water Sector in Bangladesh was a mostly a theoretical exercise. A huge amount of money was spent, but after five years, the plan had produced mostly paper. The water-sector models were not tested against available data, there was no clear-cut implementation plan and little political commitment to realise things on the ground. It tried to accomplish a lot but achieved little for the country.

Another bitter failure was our intensive jute cultivation scheme. Jute is the ‘golden fibre of Bangladesh’, a natural, biodegradable, truly multi-use product. Even in the early 1970s, it still accounted for 70% of Bangladesh’s export earnings. But by the 1980s, much of the export market had switched to cheaper polythene and other synthetic materials, so the aim was to downsize, restructure and privatise our jute sector to keep it competitive and sustainable. Under a multilateral donor agreement, the government in the early 1990s promised to close nine mills, privatise nine others and retrench 20,000 workers. But several years later, there were still 30 state-owned jute mills employing nearly 100,000 workers and losing about US$ 90 million a year, so donor funding was halted. Both sides were guilty of unrealistic expectations, poor strategy and weak follow-through. Now, Bangladeshi jute is a declining industry.

Any bright spots?
Sure, plenty of them. For example, my first contact with CIDA was in the 1980s through its Bangladesh Crop Diversification programme. Up to then, many Bangladeshis thought that food security was just rice, rice, rice. But that programme helped us diversify into potatos, pulses, oilseeds, maize and wheat. It wound up directly benefiting one million small and marginal farm families, made a real contribution to the population’s diet and nutrition and won the 1994 Canadian Award for International Development. Two main ingredients for success were real donor harmonisation and strong research support, especially from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Potato Research Centre (CIP) ³.

To be fair, the food security and diversification that Bangladesh has achieved today wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment of successive governments to agriculture. They have ploughed in huge investments in developing agricultural infrastructure, education, research and extension and in crucial manpower development, initially with a lot of support from USAID.

³ The acronyms derive from the Spanish names for these organisation: Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maîz y Trigo, based in Mexico, and Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), in Peru. Both CYMMIT and CIP are members of the CGIAR network.