Bangladesh - Belgium

II: Overall Assessment of Intervention using DAC Criteria
Relevance 66
The issue of corruption is high on the national agenda and even more so under the CTG
whose fight against corruption has been its main focus since taking office. On Transparency
International Corruption Perception Index, Bangladesh scores 2 (2007) which suggests a
high level of corruption on a scale of 1-10. On the World Bank measurement of governance
framework (2006), ‘control of corruption’ index Bangladesh scores among the 5% worst
countries. The estimated annual household burden of corruption is £358 million (2005).
TIB has decided to focus on health, primary education and local government which fits well
with the priorities detailed in the PRS as well as with citizens priorities. For example,
subjects for Report Cards (monitoring and evaluation tools) are selected by the CCCs in
consultation with local communities and relate to issues that most affect people’s lives
(health and education services and local government).
Efficiency
The budget is split approximately 1:3 on macro-level: micro level activities. This TIB chapter
is the biggest in the world (with 190 staff, of whom 76 are in the field). TIB reports to its
donor consortium using accepted reporting standards and external audit.
A recent impact assessment of TB (Knox and Yasmin, 2007) attempted to quantify the
projected monetary savings (over 8 years) if corrupt practices were curtailed:
• for 36 hospitals the savings were in the region of £840,000;
• for 36 primary schools savings were approximately £110,000; and
• for 36 unions and pourashavas savings were £768 million.
If these figures are confirmed this represents a significant return on investment and income
savings for citizens and particularly the poor since the corruption is mostly linked to leakage
in provision of special support to the poor (educational stipends, pensions, relief, widows
allowances etc).
There is some concern that (as a result of awareness raising) the AI desks are swamped
with requests for help and that dealing with these can divert the CCCs from their core
activities. There is also growing demand to look at corruption in other sectors such as land
reform, water and banking. Responding to these demands is likely to overstretch TIB’s
resources and compromise the quality of its work.
This is the only example in the world of a TIB Chapter undertaking its own social
mobilisation programme with its own field staff. Although this confers advantages in terms of
TIB having direct access to grassroots experience to inform its national level advocacy, we
question the appropriateness and efficiency of this for this kind of organisation. Running a
field programme is a massive undertaking with human resource management headaches
which can divert attention from its main focus. Perhaps the campaign 67 could have been
channelled through the massive number of NGOs and CSOs already existing? However, we
acknowledge that CCC members were attracted to become members because of the TIB
name and international recognition. The importance of having respected and well known
members of CCCs cannot be underestimated. However, perhaps TIB can work more
strategically in the future with its NGO Alliance.
67 We find it hard to use the term social movement which TIB prefers, as social movements
are not externally driven and are thus a very different ‘animal’
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