STUDY TOUR OF COMILLA
AND OTHER AREAS IN BANGLADESH
14 March -
29 March 1981
Project
Compassion
Philippines
31 March
1981
Bangladesh
The Comilla
Model is essentially a multi-pronged strategy to increase agricultural
production.
Cooperatives are formed to draw thrift savings from the people; institute a built-in mechanism for
repayment of loans; and serve as delivery network for services and commodities
from government, banks and other sources of external assistance.
An institutional framework is established at local level which affects
coordination among government agencies and other entities as well as provide
cooperative access to rural credit, seeds and fertilizers, modern techniques,
and other inputs required in production.
Drainage canals, mechanized irrigation, and roads are built in the rural
areas as infrastructure for agricultural development.
Thru the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP), the government has
taken the model outside the laboratory area for replication throughout the
country.
Generally, the emphasis is placed in one component, the formation of
cooperatives. Replicating the total
package requires heavy investments beyond the current capability of the
government to provide.
It is also assumes a degree of commitment and technical expertise
available at government level which are basic preconditions in
institution-building and organizational work among the people.
The assumption seems to have been a little optimistic.
The failure of previous rural development approaches led to the
established of the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development in 1959.
Its continuing work at Comilla have yielded innovative strategies in
various aspects of rural development work.
The Academy has admirably survived political changes, the retirement of
its “great teacher,” Dr. Ahmed Ackter Khan, the barrage of criticisms unleashed
on the institution from virtually all encampments.
Its staff continue to perform tasks that they used to while evolving the
Comilla approach: organizing people,
motivating groups, testing approaches, documenting experience, evaluating
trends, refining techniques – doing development in the usual spirit of high
adventure and on-the-ground pragmatism.
How to imbue implementers with such spirit (and the skills) without
virtually duplicating the Academy physically at every Thana seems to be the
problem. Is the role of the Academy
also replicable outside the laboratory area?
The world awaits the answer.
While the country’s landscape is pockmarked with ponds, the social
geography is dotted with pilot projects, each seeking and elusive answer to the
riddle of underdevelopment. Some 53
international organizations operate in the country. There are few indigenous ones.
Ironically, the perceived deficiencies, if not outright failure, of the
Comilla model seem to propel many others to try new approaches, evolve
strategies. It’s the old 1953 story all
over again – with the Academy on the defensive this time.
However they may differ in approaches and strategies, these projects
almost always end up granting loans, and supporting income-generating
activities. Income generation is the
main trend in Bangladesh today.
As always as it was when the Academy emerged from among the palm trees
of Comilla 21 years ago.
a. In correct
to the Comilla approach, the Ilaw ng Buhay is not a program
strategy for agricultural development.
It is a
process model.
Increased
agricultural production may come about as a result, but the process does not
emanate from a particular sectoral framework, such as for instance,
agriculture, health, industry, education, social services.
Rather the
Ilaw process stems from the advocacy that community-government collaboration in
development in possible; that such collaboration can be catalyzed at each phase
of a project cycle, from planning to evaluation; that the sequencing of
activities to bring about each phase can in fact be planned, implemented, and
assessed.
It is this
sequencing which is being refined in varied situations by the project organization.
b. In
applying the process model in varying circumstances, the project organization
has evolved strategies relating to particular developmental issues, which are
to name a few critical ones: community
survey with findings used to forge agreement on priority problems which can be
tackled by all sectors; how to motivate and sustain the interests of each
participant group; the family at risk, the child in need, the environment in
danger, etc. as rallying point for community action; local-level planning;
community participation in project formulation, monitoring, and assessment.
c. The
efficacy of the process model in forging close community-government is what we
want to demonstrate to policymakers, planners, and implementers.
d. Can such proess
be replicated by government or any project genuinely seeking the participation
of communities in developmental efforts?
Strategically, yes. Tactically
no.
The
Comilla experience teaches us this essential lesson:
Replicating
a model entails replicating the role of the agency which has evolved the
model. The government or any project
has no built-in capability to assume such role. It will not be able, for instance, to anticipate the problems
which can occur. It has to develop
trained manpower required by the model.
The
Comilla experience tends to validate our theory that a single-motive approach
to building local institutions and organizing communities will not work. Organizing farmers alone will not do. Motivating people on the basis of economic
needs alone will not sustain motivation and interest, and will not raise
consciousness about organization discipline.
Imposing sanctions without the company motivation strategy will not insure
the viability of local institutions.
Equity in
development is the current propelling force of criticism directed against many
programs and projects. The Comilla
Model was an unwilling victim. In the
first place, when it was conceived, the primary interest was to shore up the
sagging resources of small and medium farmers so that they could be
credit-worthy and thereby mobilized to be a potent for agricultural
development. The interests of the
landless and other marginal groups took secondary importance. They were in the minority in the laboratory
area and had understandably a lukewarm attitude to increased agricultural
production on account of their relation to the means of production. But in the resurgence of empathy and
justifiable bias for the disadvantaged everybody forgot what Comilla intended
to do at the beginning. It was thus
measured on a different value sale.
In our
particular case, we have to take a hard look at our programs and projects and
have the peace of conscience that in our absorption with the process which
catalyzes such programs and projects we do not forget the traditionally
unattended layer of the target population.
1.a. The Academy at Comilla had everything going
for it during its inception in 1959-
1) Ford
Foundation underwrote the construction of the buildings.
2) Michigan
University made its faculty staff available for consultation; it actively
assisted in the recruitment and training of the initial staff.
3) The
government had policy and logistic support for the Academy.
4) Dr. Ahmed
Ackter khan enjoyed immense popularity among his former colleagues in the Civil Service who were willing to
help him fulfill the dream of a “crazy old man.”
5) The
Academy had the enviable posture of rising phoenix-like from the ashes of
previous attempts to improve conditions in the rural areas.
b. Except for
a brief undertain period just after the 1971 war of Liberation, the government
has always extended unwavering support to the Academy. The volume of rhetoric heaped in praise of
the Academy by high-ranking members of the national leadership will lead anyone
to think that anything the institution recommends will be implemented by the
ministries.
As it has turned out, there is always a wide gap between the rhetoric of support by high-ranking authorities and actual practice by various ministries. On several critical occasions particular to the replication of the Comilla Model, for instance, the recommendations of the Academy have been grossly ignored implementing agencies.
c. The
Academy earned attention, awe and admiration from the international community
of scholars, rural development experts, politicians and statesmen, and donors.
It has
earned for the country international recognition.
The
laboratory area, the Comilla Kotwali Thana, has become virtual Mecca for
researchers and visitors. The conduct
of research, particularly foreign-funded studies not directly related to the
action programs of the Academy, as well as the influx itself of visitors in the
villages, may have in themselves a variable in the experimentation. Exposure to visitors may have hastened
motivational work among villagers. Or
the presence itself of foreign technicians demonstrating methods, etc. may have
speeded up adoption of technologies.
This variable is absent to a significant degree in areas where models evolved will be replicated.
d.
The popularity of the Academy with the local intelligentsia
has been eroded in recent years by criticisms leveled about the Comilla Model.
It has become fashionable for functionaries of pilot projects to justify their quest for more effective strategies by citing the failure of the Academy to reach disadvantaged groups.
Not frequently the Academy puts up
a defensive instance to answer such criticisms.
This trend is likely to jeopardize
the exercise of the Academy’s new mandate to evaluate pilot projects undertaken
by NGO’s.
2. As
developed by the Academy, the Comilla Model had an intrinsic element the
integration of services at government and external agency level. Thus the Thana Training and Development
Center provides an infrastructure support to effect such integration. In locating offices of technical agencies at
a particular geographic area, at least their physical distance will not hamper
willingness to coordinate programs.
Some TTDC’s have housing quarters built to make probably that even in
their sleep and all thru their nightmares at the Thana government functionaries
will still think of functional coordination.
Service
delivery still remains generally fragmented if not fractionized by corruption.
On this critical element, this task of evolving a well coordinated
mechanism to effect integrated programming and delivery of services, on this
issue which has preoccupied planners and project implementers the world over,
the researchers of the Academy have been surprisingly detached.
The Academy has not deemed it wise to join the frantic race to arrive at
the correct mix of policy support, political will, institutional framework,
legal sanctions, incentive package, and sensitizing strategies to hammer into
the heads of bureaucrats the need for cooperation, etc. to facilitate
meaningful development.
3. To a
significant degree much more than they will concede, most development projects
in Bangladesh have been influenced by some strategies evolved by the Academy.
The technique of organizing communities according to occupational
groupings has not been put to serious challenge by any pilot project. Homogeneity of economic interests is aspired
for in the organizational activities of practically all projects. From the array of economic groups
identified, each project selects its particular target groups. Event eh few attempts to organize the
community on the basis of sex and age groups is governed by the popular bias to
reach such groups among the property-less and the disadvantaged.
In the vocabulary of the Academy, such informal groups organized by
other projects are “pre-cooperative groups.”
These groups may stay such due to the reluctance of other projects to
link to the federated cooperatives. In
their view, the dominant social groups almost always capture the leadership in
the federation and hence they are vested with the authority to decide on who
get the most benefit – which is, more often than not, themselves.
Thus the economic group technique gets entangled in a web of
contradictions. Aiming to be pertinent
to the economic interests of each group, which leads to the formation of
homogenous groups within the community, the technique results in further
widening the cleavage of class privilege and power.
The organizational technique currently popular in Bangladesh may bear
within itself the seed of its own futility.
4. Despite
its announced intention to dissociate itself as the implementor o the Comilla
Model, The Academy remains prominently identified with it in the public
mind. Despite the 15-year period of its
adoption by government in the whole Comilla district, the achievements are
still being claimed unabashedly by the Academy as its own.
Such a lapse has had repercussions to the effort to court government
ministries to adopt the IDP as its own.
5. The
malaise which seems to afflict the Academy’s current training programs has been
traced to an enfeebled imagination applied to research and extension , rather
than to any serious intellectual malady.
Note: You are
invited to help formulate the recommendations after you have gone through the
entire report.
PART II: BACKGROUND NOTES
A. Bangladesh
and Its Problems
Bangladesh is a young nation which grapples with age-old problems.
Although born barely 11 years ago, the country and its people have had
more than a thousand years of history.
The Bangladeshi, like the Filipino, is a mixture of many races.
He is also an unwilling heir to varied problems spawned by
underdevelopment.
The country’s population, now placed at about 88 million in 55 thousand
square miles of land, grows at an annual rate of 2.8%.
More than 90% of the people live in rural villages.
Of the total rural population, about 51% (8.5 million households, 35
million people) are landless.
Farms one acre and less constitute 41% of total areas under
cultivation. Their share, however, in
total landholding is only 6%.
Only 15% of the rural population own farms 5 acres or more, but they own
40% of the land.
More than 70% of the people are in absolute poverty, earning 1,000 Takas
(P500) or less a year.
Of the total labor force of 23 million, around 30% are unemployed. Majority of children 0 to 14 years old are
malnourished.
Infant mortality rate is 140-150 per 1,000 live births. Literacy rate is 22.3%.
Life expectancy is 48 years.
B. Agriculture
Three-quarters of the population are engaged in agriculture, which
contributes 65% to the Gross Domestic Product.
The major crops raised during the rainy season from June to September
are rice, jute and sugarcane. Pulses,
oil seeds, tobacco, and vegetables are grown during the dry winter season from
November to May.
Wheat is bring grown in increasing quantity.
The monsoon, which brings an annual 100-inch rainfall, results in
destructive floods. Cyclones, drought,
and tidal waves also occur.
Compared to other parts of the planet, Bangladesh seems to have more
than the normal share of natural calamities.
C. Rural
Development
Bangladesh has 68,018 villages grouped into 4,350 Unions and included
under 465 Thanas, the lowest administrative units.
A Thana has about 150 villages with a combined population of around
200,000. Each village has around 100 to
400 well-knit households.
Prior to the 1950’s, previous attempts to improve conditions in the
villages were largely prompted by emergency situations due to famine and other
natural calamities.
After the famine in 1878, an Agriculture Department was set up by the
British Administration with the twin function t improve agriculture and provide
famine relief.
Shortly after the famine in 19000, the Agriculture Department was
expanded to include research as additional function.
In 1904, village cooperatives were organized to provide credit for
agricultural development.
Village development projects began to emerge in the 1920’s at the
initiative of some members of the Indian Civil Service and Christian
Missionaries.
As agitation against British rule spread to the villages in the 1930’s,
the government funneled funds to the provincial governments.
In 1938, a separate rural reconstruction department was established in
Bengal. It was abolished in 1944 upon
the recommendation of a committee which had the opinion that rural development
should be the objective of all departments, rather than the sole responsibility
of a separate unit.
In 1947, the British Government divided Bengal into two parts: West Bengl was made a province of India, and
East Pakistan, a province of Pakistan.
In East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh in 1971, little attention was
paid to the rural areas between 1948 and 1952.
After the food shortage in 1952, the government introduced the Japanese
method of rice cultivation.
Demonstration farms were established.
Rewards for best farmers were given.
The government also released funds to local bodies for minor irrigation
projects, which basically consisted of digging small canals.
D. Village
Agricultural and Industrial Development Program
In 1952, the Government of Pakistan organized a five-member committee to
formulate a suitable scheme for rural development.
The group went to the United States to study the organization,
philosophy, and techniques of extension work.
On the Basis of the committee’s recommendation, the Village Agricultural
and Industrial Development (V-AID) program was launched in 1953 as the first
comprehensive program for rural development.
It was financed by the International Cooperation Administration.
The program featured the deployment of multipurpose worker who would
coordinate the work of technical departments at village level and become in
effect their extension agent.
The V-AID
program generally proved ineffective.
The reasons given are as follows: a) the village level worker did not
possess adequate knowledge of the technical services he was supposed to
deliver; b) he was perceived as an
intruder by the villagers; c) the V-AID organization was considered a separate
department and thus failed to get the full cooperation of other
departments; d) lack of funds and
training facilities; and e) instability of central and provincial governments.
The
program was abolished in 1962.
E. The
Academy at Comilla
As early as 1956, the Government felt the need to establish training
institutes for rural development workers, government policy makers and
planners, and technical experts.
In 1958, two such institutes were established – one at Comillain East
Pakistan and the other at Peshawar in West Pakistan.
The ford Foundation and Michigan State University provided assistance in
setting up the institutes. The
instructors were recruited and sent to Michigan State University for training
in 1958.
The institute at Comilla started operations in May,
1959 and was known as the East Pakistan Academy for Village Development, which
was later chaged to Pakistan Academy for Rural Development.
In 1971, when Bangladesh became a separate sovereign state, the
institution was renamed Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD).
Basic Objective.
The basic objective of the Academy is to evolve rural development
approaches which can be recommended to Government for nation-wide replication.
The Academy uses the entire Comilla Kotwali Thana (107 sq. miles) as its
social laboratory for research and experimental projects.
Training. The Academy trains a wide range of
clientele-
v
farmers
v
village leaders
v
personnel of technical agencies
v
administrators
v
planners
v
academicians
v
teachers and students
v
workers of non-government organizations
The Academy trains an average of 3,000 to 4,000 people a year. As of 1979, over a span of 20 years, more
than 60,000 people have been trained at Comilla.
A number of foreign countries have sent trainees to the Academy
including the Philippines, Nepal, Sweden, United States, Laos, Australia, USSR,
Japan, Iran, Turkey, etc. In addition,
post-graduate students from foreign universities come to the Academy to conduct
thesis work.
The subject matter areas covered in training courses include the
following with varying emphasis according t need –
v
Rural Administration
v
Rural Economics
v
Rural Sociology, Social psychology, and communication
v
Cooperatives and Rural Business Management
v
Agricultural Research and Extension
v
Rural Education
v
Public Health, Family Planning, and Women’s Education
v
Irrigation and Mechanization
v
Community Organization
v
Accounts and Audits
v
Planning and Coordination for Development
The faculty staff directly handle the training of Thana-level officers, who in turn serve
as trainors of village-level organizations.
Training for each clientele generally consists of
v
Classroom discussions
v
Library studies
v
Field visits
v
Study of research findings or case studies
The curriculum is constantly enriched by experiences drawn from action
research and regular contacts with villagers in the social laboratory area.
Researches. The researches undertaken by the Academy
fall under two categories-
v
Survey research
v
Evaluation studies
Thru survey
research, socio-economic data are collected for the purpose of planning
developmental projects.
Evaluation studies are carried out either independently or jointly with
other institutions to monitor and assess various projects of the Academy and
those undertaken by other agencies outside Comilla.
During the last 20 years, the Academy has established collaborative
links for research work with Michigan State University; Harvard University;
World Population Council; UN Research Institute for Social Development; Baath
University; ASARRD/FAO; University of Goettingen and Upsala; Asian and Pacific
Development Administration Center.
More than 40 books and articles by national and foreign scholars have
dealt with various aspects of the Academy’s work at Comilla.
Faculty. The faculty staff is composed of
v
Director
v
Deputy Directors
v
Instructors
v
Associate Instructors
v
Assistant Instructors
v
Librarian
The total
staff number 31, most of whom have advanced degrees acquired from foreign
universities.
Facilities.
The campus area covers 156 acres (__ has.), of which 10 acres (__ has.) are used by the Cooperative College.
The
Academy has
v
A two-story library building with over 29,000 titles
available
v
An auditorium with space to seat about 250 persons
v
A cafeteria which can accommodate 300 persons for meals at a
time
v
A Guest House
v
3 hostels
v
Bank
v
Post Office
v
Telegraph Office
v
Clinic
v
Cooperative Store
v
Barber Shop
F. The
Comilla Model
During the first five years (1960-1965) of experimentation at the
comilla Kotwali Thana, the Academy evolved what is known world-wide as the “
comilla Model” or the “ Comilla Approach,” which is essentially a multi-pronged
strategy to increase agricultural production.
Its basic
components are as follows:
Two-tier Cooperative System. At the village level, cooperatives are
formed among farmers and non-farmers.
Each cooperative draws up production plans; applies for supervised
credit; disburses loans from the Thana-level association; collects repayment;
generate thrift deposits from members; and formulates decisions on matters
presented during weekly meetings.
Thana Training and Development Center 9TTDC). Thru the center, the offices, services, and
commodities of technical agencies, as well as of the Cooperatives Association,
the Thana Council, and other entities are located in a particular geographic
area. The TTDC facilitates coordination
among government agencies and between the government and the cooperatives. It provides cooperatives easy access to
services and commodities from the government and external agencies.
Rural Works Program (RWP). This program builds the physical
infrastructure for agricultural development:
roads and bridges primarily for marketing farm produce, embankments,
drainage canals, and culverts for flood control; and irrigation canals to
protect crops from drought.
It also
provides jobs to the unemployed in the rural areas.
Thana Irrigation Program (TIP). This program expands the RWP thru creation
of water reservoir, canals, sluices, regulators; use of drilling rigs;
tube-well sinking. High- yielding
varieties are introduced in irrigated areas.
Like the
RWP, it also creates jobs for the unemployed in the villages.
As developed by the Academy, these four basic components of the Comilla
Model are mutually interdependent.
The two-tier cooperative system organizes the people and protectsthem
from money-lenders. It helps accumulate
capital and facilitates pumping of credit and other to the rural areas.
Both the Rural Works Program and the Thana Irrigation Program develop
land water resources thus increasing productive capability.
The Thana Training and Development Center coordinates the flow of
services and commodities and provide training to farmers and other rural
clientele.
G. Major
Achievements
The following have been cited as major achievements of the Academy –
In its laboratory area, the Academy has increased rice production four
times, turning a deficit area into a surplus area.
Per capita
farm income showed a 172% increase between 1963 and 1970.
An additional annual labor demand of about 10 thousand man-years has
been created at the Comilla Kotwali Thana.
All four programs experimented as components of the Comilla model have
been launched nation-wide by the government.
Before the TTDC was tested as concept by the Academy, the Thana was
nothing but a police station and a place for collecting taxes. Now every Thana is a focal point for
development efforts.
Before the TIP was experimented on by the Academy, mass-scale mechanized
irrigation was unknown to the Bengali farmer.
Now it is a national program.
The same
could be said of the Rural Works program.
In 1970, the government launched the Integrated Rural Development
program (IRDP) to replicate the Comilla Model all over Bangladesh. How the IRDP is an institutionalized program
in more than 50% of the Thanas.
H. Innovative
Strategies
New Extension System. In the past, government extension workers were ineffective. They had no local organizations to rely
on. The villagers regarded them with
suspicion. The flow of information,
guidance and supplies was not sustained by the extension system.
In its work with cooperatives, the Academy evolved the Model Farmer
concept. Each cooperative selects its
most progressive farmer. The Model
Farmer and the Manager of the cooperative attend weekly meetings and classes
either at the Academy or the TTDC. They
relay to the village the ideas and commodities acquired.
In effect,
they serve as the new extension agents.
Social Services.
The Academy has been devoting increased attention to action research in
the social sector: rural education;
health and nutrition; and women, youth, and child development. Some strategies developed in these fields
have been adopted by several ministries.
Participation of the Landless. An experiment to test approaches to
generating the participation of the landless in village development is being
undertaken by the Academy in cooperation with the Asian Survey on Agrarian
Reform and Rural Development (ASARRD).
Preliminary results are considered encouraging.
Total Village Development. This model was tested during the last five
years in several villages. Projected
for expansion within the year, it seeks to organize all villagers 9 years old
and above under a single institutional framework, most probably the Village
Cooperative Society.