NGOs vow to resist donors' interference in economic policy
Bangladesh Social Forum (BSF), a platform for the NGOs, has vowed to resist the IMF, World Bank, ADB and other donor agencies from interfering in the country's economic policy.
"The country's sovereignty has now become jeopardised due to the naked interference of the three devils in our policies," said an ActionAid Bangladesh statement issued of behalf of the forum yesterday.
The BSF groups, among others, ActionAid Bangladesh, Angikar Bangladesh, Shushashoner Jonno Pracharavijan (Sujan), Inciden and some other organisations.
It held a series of programmes across the country as part of a weeklong campaign that kicked off on October 12 to protest the motive of the donor agencies.
The forum expressed its determination to resist the donor agencies at the concluding session of the programme titled "Bangladesh Week" in the city on Saturday.
Angikar Bangladesh president M Helaluddin recited a mock farewell letter for the IMF, WB and ADB on behalf of the forum at the session.
The forum leaders alleged that the amount of loan for Bangladesh and other recipient countries were increasing every year due to hard conditions imposed by the IMF, WB and ADB.
"At present the country has to pay annually Tk 11,000 per head to repay loans to donors, amounting to a loss of Tk 14,000 crore per year," said the statement.
It said the amount is double than the country's health budget and 20 percent of the total budget for the current fiscal year.
The NGO leaders said the world is now facing the adverse effect of climate change caused by the indiscreet consuming mentality of the rich countries while Bangladesh is one of the worst vulnerable countries to natural disasters due to the climate change.
“Instead of acknowledging their responsibilities for the catastrophic situation, the rich countries through the IMF, WB and ADB are now trying to implement their various projects in Bangladesh and other affected countries in the name of adaptation which will eventually increase poverty of the poor countries," said the statement.
It said the people of the country never nodded to any kind of dictatorship in the past and urged people to get united against the "evil motive" of the multilateral financial institutions.
The forum leaders called on the government to refrain from signing any such agreements further and placed a seven-point charter of demands to the donor agencies and the government.
The major demands include immediate waiver of debts, stopping imposition of hard conditions, refraining from taking any project harmful to the environment, transferring the multi-donor trust fund (MDTF) management to government control, considering the climate change fund out of the foreign development aid and allocating funds to offset loss caused by climate change.
Other demands include providing compensation to those who have been affected by climate change caused by implementing some of the IMF, WB and ADB development projects, and stopping massive privatisation drive in the name of eradicating poverty and simultaneously providing adequate subsidy and increasing government allocation to the government service sectors.
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