Poverty alleviation
I am very much agreeable to the comments made by the Honourable Finance Minister on the NGO credit programme and its rate of interest relating to poverty alleviation and sustainable economic development in rural areas.
In Bangladesh, thousands of NGOs have been working since long with diversified rural development programmes. Besides, some of these NGOs are also involved in commercial activities.
Presently, over 56,000 NGOs have been working in the country at various locations, including some international relief origanisations and UN bodies and all of these activities are directed towards rural development and poverty alleviation to achieve sustainable development for the rural women and hardcore poor.
If you take the real value of money delivered to the rural people by these NGOs over the last 30 years, for rural and economic development, definitely we could have had positive change, but in reality, the visibility toward changes is limited and dismal and not much prospective .
The finance minister has rightly pointed out how the money is being used and why the borrowers fail to achieve expected results.
We need to address the following to have the answer:
Some NGOs give emphasis on earning on credit programme, rather than looking into development prospect and adopt aggressive methods to recover the money.
Some NGOs never guide the borrowers on the use of the money borrowed.
The government should address all such issues.
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