Food minister asks NGOs to create replicable models of development

Food Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque yesterday called upon non-government organisations to create some models of development by focusing on some certain localities so that the government can replicate the models in other parts of the country.
"Take some villages as models and expand your activities massively to create an example so that the development partners or the government can replicate the models in other areas," said Razzaque.
The minister made the call at a seminar on 'food security in char islands of north and northwest of Bangladesh' at Cirdap auditorium in Dhaka.
Unnayan Shamannay, a research and advocacy organisation, and Concern Worldwide, an international charity, hosted the event.
Most of the people in char areas suffer from hunger. Natural disasters like floods and river erosion put their lives and livelihoods at stake.
The minister said RDRS Bangladesh, a development NGO, has been working in two northern districts -- Rangpur and Dinajpur -- since the independence of the country.
"But if you ask RDRS to give example of poverty alleviation of any single union in Nilphamari, Kurigram or Dinajpur, it will not be able to do so although it has done a lot of things," said the food minister.
The NGO has provided seeds, food and blankets to the poor, he said.
"Do something that we can replicate," he said, referring to Concern Worldwide, which works in remote char areas of the north and northwest.
Under the project, Concern provided peanut seeds to a poor woman living in a char island under Rajshahi district. But the woman could not reap any benefit as her crops got damaged due to a lack of irrigation.
"You have given the woman seeds. But there was no follow-up as to what led to the failure," he said.
The food minister said he would take up the problems of the people in the char islands with the prime minister.
He also said he would request the disaster management and relief ministry to take special safety net schemes to ease food insecurity among the poor in the remote char areas.
AKM Musa, country director of Concern Worldwide in Bangladesh, said large investment is needed for sustainable solutions to the problems of the char people.
"Coordinated initiative of the government and the private sector is necessary."
Mahabub Hossain, an economist and executive director of BRAC, said there have been problems of coordination not only among the government agencies but also among the NGOs.
He said farming is the main economic activity of the people in the char areas. But the farmers cannot sell their produce due to the poor transport and communication system.
He suggested developing a contract farming system by involving the private sector processors.
Public-private-NGO partnership is necessary to address the problem, he said.
Lawmaker Shariar Alam of Rajshahi stressed the need for building infrastructure like concrete roads to solve the problem of communication. He also cited the poor law and order situation in the char areas and said robbers take away the produce of the farmers in broad daylight.
If roads are built to connect the char islands with the mainland, many of their problems like marketing of crops can be addressed, he said.