farjana's blog

VOICE's Executive Director Ahmed Swapan Mahmud was profiled recently on the CIVICUS World Assembly blog on the CitizenShift website. The assembly will take place in Montreal this year, and will focus on three main themes: Aid Effectiveness. Economic Justice and Environmental Justice. A portion of the original blog post is re-posted here.

Community meeting on ADB's Public Communication Policy will be held in Jamalpur on 8 July 2010. Local communities affected by the ADB's project, NGOs and CSOs will be attending the meeting. The meeting will broadly discuss on the ADB's PCP and on how the policy was put in place during implementation of ADB's projects in the area. VOICE has already translated the relevant materials on PCP which will also be shared in the community consultation.

An opinion sharing meeting held at press club in the capital on Sunday organized by different network of rights group criticized government policy that have created space of investment for the private sector, foreign companies in power sector. They mentioned that in view of other Asian country experiences it may create more public debts and increase disparity in society. The meeting was jointly organized by Action Aid, EquityBD, Jubilee South, SUPRO, MFTD, Unnayan Onneshan and VOICE.

Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South narrated her experience from Philippines, and Sayed Aminul Haque of EquityBD gave analysis on Bangladesh situation in this regard. The meeting was moderated by Rashed Al Titumir of Unnayan Onneshan, while Md. Shamsuddoha of EquityBD, Faruque Ahmed from MFTD and Farjana Akther of VOICE spoke on the occasion.

PRESS RELEASE

[Dhaka, May 3, 2010] VOICE, rights-based research and advocacy organization based in Dhaka called for solidarity to observe the Asian Day of Action against Privatization of Essential Services. The Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) and the Campaign Network on the Right to Essential Services and Natural Resources (RTRS) declared May 4 as the Asian Day of Action Against Privatization of Essential Services while VOICE being its members called for strengthening civil society voices against blanket privatization of essential services including heath and education. The day of action coincides with the 43rd Annual Governors Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Taskent, Uzbekistan. The observation of the day aims at standing against the ADB’s role in privatizing water, power, and other essential services in the region.

Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE urges all sects of society to resist and oppose the imposition and financing of privatization of water and power and other essential services. He said that due to privatization process in Bangladesh, people have already been affected and the poor became the worst sufferers. He further added to stop financing private sector monopolization of
water, power, health and education sectors in Bangladesh.

Some 21 civil society organizations staged a protest rally on Tuesday to denounce the role of the development partners and their allied ‘elite class’ and bureaucrats in development process, saying they were responsible for misusing foreign aid.

They [the development partners in Bangladesh, the ‘elite class’ and the bureaucrats] have made the country increasingly indebted since liberation, the protesters from rights based organizations told the rally.

Bangladesh government on Monday began a two-day dialogue in Dhaka with multilateral lenders and donor countries seeking approval of the poverty reduction strategy, a lender-driven development document.

Parallel to the ongoing BDF meeting, the rights organizations — Arpan, AMKS, Eso, Bangladesh Krishak Federation, CSRL, EquityBD, Kishani Sohva, Lead Trust, On line knowledge centre, Protikrit, Karmajibi Nari, La via campesina, MFTD, Prantik, Purbasha, RCSV, Swadhin Bangla Garments Sramik Federation, Solidarity Workshop, Sirajganj Flood Forum, Uddipan, Voice, and World Development Movement, UK—organised the rally in front of National Press Club in the city.

The organizers demanded sovereign, democratic and responsible financing to ensure that the benefits of aid and loans reach the poor through a transparent and accountable manner.

Speakers at a press conference yesterday said loans and grants of the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other international financial institutions are destructive for Bangladesh as the donor agencies take away more kickbacks than what they have provided as aid or loans.

Only 25 percent of the foreign aid and loans provided to the country go to the target group while the rest of them are attained for the auxiliary and support services, they added.

The speakers said this at the press conference organised by VOICE, a rights-based research group, and Aid Accountability Group, a civil society alliance, at the National Press Club in the city.

They called on the government to reject destructive aid and formulate an independent economic policy instead of PRSP and to make all loan agreements public ensuring transparency and accountability.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=126405

VOICE, a rights research organisation, on Sunday called upon the government to reject ‘destructive foreign aid’ that has crippled national policymaking by robbing it of ‘sovereignty and independence’.
The rights leaders, at a press conference ahead of the meeting of the Bangladesh Development Forum, insisted that the government should announce when it will stop receiving conditional external assistance and begin to prepare the national budget with domestic resources only.
They added that only 25 per cent of foreign aid and loans reached the target group while the rest went to auxiliary and support services including the fees of foreign consultants.
‘The people of Bangladesh are becoming more and more indebted due to the loans given by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and thus have become more vulnerable to foreign manipulation,’ Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, told reporters at the National Press Club.

BDF won’t accommodate people’s voices or representatives: VOICE

Rights group VOICE, complaining that people’s voices will not be heard nor their representatives accommodated in the upcoming dialogue between the government and global lenders, has demanded that that conditions imposed for, and the expenditure pattern of, foreign aid-funded development projects must be made public.

Referring to the meeting of the Bangladesh Development Forum scheduled to be held in Dhaka on February 15-16, VOICE has called for a debate on the relevance of external loans, which should involve politicians, professional groups, businesspeople, civil society dignitaries, and representatives of local government and community organisations.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the BDF meeting which will be attended by representatives of the Local Consultative Group, a forum of lending agencies and donor countries, and those of the newly emerging economic superpowers.
‘People from all strata of life do not have any access to the Forum although it demands greater participation of stakeholders,’ Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, noted in a position paper titled ‘Destructive Aid and Bangladesh Development forum 2010’.

VOICE will participate in the 2010 Amar Ekushey Book Fair held in Bangla Academy, Dhaka that will continue until February 28th. VOICE participated in the book fair, presenting about 50 items of its publications  including books, reports, newsletters, posters and other publications. VOICE also keeps books and reports from national and international organizations with whom VOICE has been closely working.

The participation of VOICE in the Book Fair helps disseminate information valued by VOICE, more specifically around the issues of globalization, trade, aid effectiveness, ICTs and information rights, climate change, IFIs, food and agriculture and of politics. By participating in the book fair, VOICE is taking the opportunity to build a wider constituency and raise critical awareness among the stakeholders including teachers, students, politicians, researchers, citizen actors, NGOs, activists, researchers etc, around these issues.

Speakers in a discussion meeting yesterday stressed the need for ensuring transparency among NGOs to make effective use of the foreign aid which they felt was necessary for equity based development.
They also suggested for the disclosure of NGOs activities including amount of aids they received and the mode of expenditures.
They were addressing the discussion 'Role of the Civil Society on Aid Effectiveness' jointly organised by Voice (Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment) and Aid Accountability Group at National Press Club in the city.