<incom> Critque of BRAC in last week Guardian (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[Ahmed Swapan]

  QUTOES:

  "One area causing concern among NGOs...is  Brac's environmental
  record..."

  "In December, two groups...accused Brac and the government
  of being "unethical" and dishonest in their promotion of hybrid crops."

  GROWING DISCONTENT

  Critics claim Bangladesh NGO Brac acts as a parallel state

  One of the world's largest NGOs has helped millions in
  Bangladesh, but critics now claim it acts as a parallel state, 
accountable to no
  one

  Annie Kelly, The Guardian, February 20 2008

  In the chaotic heart of downtown Dhaka, the 19-story Brac building -
  home to one of the world's largest NGOs, the Bangladesh Rehabilitation
  Assistance Committee, an organisation so powerful that it is commonly
  termed Bangladesh's second government - casts a shadow over one
  of the city's largest slums. From the top floor, the slum looks like
  a ramshackle maze of corrugated iron and tarpaulin.

  But a short boat ride across the river reveals a neighbourhood of neat
  interlocking streets dotted with open shopfronts, selling everything 
from
  firewood to hot cakes, and with centres providing health and education
  programmes to its 300,000 inhabitants.

  Most of the small enterprises here have been funded by Brac 
micro-finance loans.
  The slum's school is run by Brac-trained teachers using Brac 
textbooks. More
  than 200 Brac-trained health volunteers dispense medical services. 
Down the road
  is the Brac University, and a Brac bank sign is just visible across 
the street.

  With an expenditure of £160m, a staff of 108,000 and services that 
reach more
  than 110 million people across the country, Brac has grown from a 
small relief
  operation into an organisation globally unsurpassed in the scale of the
  programmes it provides to some of the world's poorest people.

  In its 35-year history, it has organised nearly 7 million landless 
poor into
  239,000 village organisations and distributed more than £2bn in 
micro-finance
  loans.

  Brac's vocational programmes and micro-financing have created in 
excess of 6m
  new jobs, its health services reach more than 100 million people every 
year, and
  around 1.5 million children are educated in its 52,000 schools. Its 
belief that
  climate change and rising sea levels will become the greatest obstacle 
to
  raising Bangladesh out of poverty has led to a social forestry 
programme that
  planted more than 15m trees in 2007.

  "If 25% of Bangladesh is going to be underwater by 2100, then this 
presents the
  greatest challenge we have ever faced, and one that I think Brac will 
play a
  great role in finding solutions for," says Fazle Hasan Abed, who gave 
up a
  promising career in an oil company to help start Brac in 1972 and now, 
in his
  role as Brac chairman, is arguably one of the most influential men in
  Bangladesh.

  The NGO's exponential growth is in part to do with the failure of 
Bangladeshi
  administrations to provide services for the millions of landless poor, 
but Brac
  has also proved to be good at making money. In the 1980s, it saw that 
the
  private sector was unwilling to provide support for the growth of small
  enterprise and stepped in to fill the gap. It now generates around 70% 
of its
  own income through a huge array of Brac-branded enterprises.

  Following its meteoric rise in Bangladesh, Brac now believes it can 
replicate
  its work and influence in other developing countries across the world 
and solve
  some of the development dilemmas still left unanswered by northern 
NGOs.

  "As a southern NGO, I think we have a different approach to 
development," says
  Brac's executive director, Mahabub Hossain. "We understand poverty 
because our
  country is, in many ways, defined by it, and we understand poor 
people's
  aspirations and needs. I think that, more than NGOs from the north, we 
are able
  to join up the dots."

  Hossain says Bangladesh is now a fundamentally different country to 
what it was
  pre-Brac. "We are slowly proving it's possible to fight and win the 
battle with
  poverty here in Bangladesh," he says.

  But Brac's swelling economic clout and increasing monopolisation of 
Bangladesh's
  development sector is causing concern in some ranks. There are 
accusations that
  Brac is acting like a parallel state, but one that is accountable to 
no one.

  "Brac is an incredibly effective organisation, but it is at the stage 
where it
  is basically unchallenged," says Khushi Kabir, one of Brac's first 
employees and
  now the head of Nijera Kori, an anti-poverty NGO. "Government 
dependency on its
  services has grown to the extent that they almost can't run the 
country without
  it."

  One area causing concern among NGOs such as Nijera Kori is Brac's 
environmental
  record, especially around the promotion of hybrid crop seeds to the 
millions of
  farmers taking out Brac micro-finance loans in Bangladesh's rural 
communities.
  Brac moved into hybrid seed production in the 1980s, working first 
with Chinese
  seed producers to provide poor farmers with high-yield hybrid rice and 
maize
  seeds. Now teams of Brac scientists make their own in two Brac seed 
production
  plants. So far, it has cornered much of the hybrid seed market in 
Bangladesh.

  The Bangladesh government has also heavily promoted hybrid seed 
planting, and
  aims to boost hybrid seed production from 250,000 hectares in the last 
planting
  season to 1m hectares in 2008. Brac and the government are working 
hand-in-hand
  to promote the usage of drought-resistant and flood-resistant hybrid 
seeds
  developed by international multinationals.

  In December, two groups - Nayakrishi Andolon, a movement of 100,000 
farmers, and
  the Ubinig social policy research organisation - accused Brac and the 
government
  of being "unethical" and dishonest in their promotion of hybrid crops.

  "A group of seed dealers and micro-credit based NGOs are active [in the
  introduction of hybrid seeds] and are taking advantage of the natural 
calamities
  and disadvantaged condition of the farmers. These activities are 
totally
  unethical," says Ubinig executive director Farida Akhter, who claims 
that Brac
  is complicit in deceiving farmers about true production costs of 
hybrid seeds
  and inflating predicted crop yields.

  The two groups say Bangladeshi farmers have enough of their own 
high-yielding
  varieties of aman and boro rice, which need to be protected and 
promoted.

  "The total agricultural system is now under threat," says Akhter, who 
blames the
  promotion of hybrid crops for Bangladesh's increasing mono-crop rice 
culture.

  "Due to irrigation for boro rice cultivation through extraction of 
underground
  water, the water table has gone down. There are arsenic problems in 
drinking
  water, and desertification in the northern region of the country has 
been
  intensified."

  More damningly, Nayakrishi Andolon and Ubinig also accuse Brac of 
linking access
  to micro-finance loans with the purchase of a particular hybrid rice 
seed, along
  with fertiliser and pesticide.

  It is a claim Brac denies. "Our borrowers always have a choice," says 
Hossain.
  "They can either use our seed or not, but the simple fact is you can 
get twice
  as much profit from a hybrid rice or maize seed than you can from 
traditional
  strains.

  "Our population has trebled in the last century, the land is limited, 
there are
  more floods, more cyclones, and more of the land we have is getting 
diverted for
  urbanisation. There is a huge national food gap. Development is about 
choices.

  There is a trade-off in everything we do, and there is an urgent and 
persistent
  need for food that we feel we have a responsibility to find solutions
    for."