HEADLINES OF THE DAY: ANOTHER 15,000 PEOPLE DIED YESTERDAY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO LIVE. THE RICH INCREASED THEIR WEALTH YESTERDAY BY $0.3 BILLION. THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS ONE DAY NEARER.
“O Ye rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”
Bahá’u’lláh
A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis at willisdavid167@gmail.com. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 69). This blog is a continuation of the review of FREEDOM FROM WANT: THE REMARKABLE SUCCESS STORY OF BRAC, THE GLOBAL GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION THAT’S WINNING THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY by Ian Smillie published in 2009.
Chapter 3: The Plan
In October 1972, Abed sat down with his team and started drafting a new proposal for Oxfam: Sulla Phase II. The relief effort was over, and now long-term development could begin. Because 80% of the adult population was illiterate, the idea was to build 125 community centers for meetings of cooperative members and adult literacy programs to reach 84,000 people and put all children between the ages of five and eleven into primary schools. It aimed to create 220 primary cooperative societies for fishermen and farmers, linking them to the government’s new Integrated Rural Development Program to create cooperatives across the entire country.
They submitted a sober report to Oxfam
Seventeen months later, they submitted a sober report to Oxfam. Things had not worked out as planned because law-and-order had deteriorated with armed gangs roaming the countryside in search of plunder, inflation had soared to 70%, field assistants had been found wanting in leadership qualities and mental discipline, and teachers were a disappointment. They were forced to establish a training center with an evaluation process that could deal with staff qualifications before all other issues.
BRAC was brutally honest about what had been achieved
The medical centers established during the relief period had been phased out, and BRAC had turned to the idea of paramedics who could diagnose and treat common ailments such as dysentery, worms, tetanus, scabies, and malaria. Of 72 candidates, only 11 had been able to complete the course. But there were achievements. BRAC was brutally honest about what had been achieved and about what they had learned. The idea was not to prove that they had all the answers before they started, but to find out what worked and apply the lessons. They had learned the critical importance of competent staff. Training and constant upgrading of staff would become a permanent feature in BRAC. Third the economics of subsidized irrigation pumps and the usury of money lenders, and fourth women represented a special problematique in Bangladesh society.
Missing is an understanding of poverty as anything more than a simple economic equation
There are a few important things missing from the report. There is no appreciation of the injustice and deep schisms in the social makeup of the average Bangladesh village. Missing is an understanding of poverty as anything more than a simple economic equation. Also missing is any understanding that ‘community’ is not congruent with ‘village’ and that community development, as described in standard text books, would never work. If its efforts were to succeed, BRAC would require a radical reinterpretation of the problem.
Chapter 4: The Problem
Bangladesh in 1972 was a broken country. Average per capita income before independence was $70, the lowest in the world, although the poorest 20% were living on one-third the national average – the equivalent of $0.06 per person per day. The cyclone and the war had been disasters of major proportion: together, they were cataclysmic. In addition to the hundreds of thousand deaths, there was the problem of 10 million refugees in India. Infrastructure had been destroyed, and several planting seasons had been disrupted. Damage was placed at $1.2 billion. Housing, bridges, railways, and public utilities were all seriously damaged. The first priority of most people was survival. Most people lived in the 68,000 villages scattered across the country. Water and sanitation conditions were abysmal, education and health facilities rudimentary or nonexistent, and 80% of the population was illiterate.
70 million people living in a country the size of Maine
The price of rice had doubled by mid-1973 and did so again the following year, a result of dislocation, bad harvests, an oil crisis, and the new government’s inability to revive a wrecked economy. 70 million people living in a country the size of Maine had turned Bangladesh into the most densely populated land on earth, one that was far from self-sufficient in food. If family planning was pushed the population might be limited to 153 million by 2000. If not, it could rise to as much as 229 at the 1972 growth rate. Either way, there would be food problems.