Bangladesh : Foreign Aid

The government is aware of the fact that because of the existing international economic environment the amount of foreign aid so essential for developing countries like Bangladesh is fast dwindling. The conditionalities of aid are also becoming stringent. The government has, therefore, taken appropriate initiatives for proper utilization of foreign aid. The country's development partners at the same time, ought to acknowledge that Bangladesh not only needs more aid but also better aid.

The government has given the highest priority to implementing with utmost efficiency the annual development programme (ADP) which allocates domestic and foreign resources to different sectors of the economy. From the economic and social points of view, agriculture is the country's most important sector as it contributes 14.2 percent of GDP and about 75 percent of its 120 million people are directly or indirectly dependent on it for their livelihood. But because of declining growth in agriculture in the past the standard of life of the small and marginal farmers had been going down forcing the nation to become increasingly dependent on food imports.

The government has, therefore, decided to increase allocation for agriculture substantially and offer a wide range of incentives to the farmers including liberal credit to raise production and generate on-farm and off-farm employment for the rural poor. An Agriculture Commission has also been set up to recommend long-term policy reforms to boost the sector.