CS Karim points an accusing finger at microcredit lenders

DHAKA, Nov 25 (bdprem.com) – The strategies of microcredit have to be revisited, agriculture and environment adviser CS Karim said Sunday amid mounting allegations of NGOs putting pressure on Sidr-ravaged clients to pay back loans. Your Ad Here Karim's comments came in his address to envoys from donor nations whom he urged to come forward fast and lift the Sidr survivors from severe hardships. "We have to revisit the strategies of microcredit," he said. "We are under stress ... how to repay loans?" he quoted the poor as telling him. Speaking of his experience in Bagerhat, one of the districts ravaged by the Nov 15 cyclone, the adviser said shrimp farmers were deeply concerned by the pressure to repay the loans—either from banks or nongovernmental organisations. Allegations have it that NGOs operating microcredit programmes in rural Bangladesh mounted pressure on their clients for repayments. Some NGOs, however, halted the loan repayment collections for two weeks apparently under severe criticism. Meanwhile, according to a decision by the cabinet, the finance ministry will distribute Tk 130 crore in soft loans among the cyclone-hit people. Fishermen, livestock and poultry farmers and other small businessmen will be given the loans through Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation, the government's microcredit funding agency. APPEAL TO DONORS Karim told the envoys at a meeting at Radisson Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka: "Let this be a wakeup call. It'd be a cardinal crime if we fail to act, if we ignore,". Karim warned that as many as 30 million people would be rendered homeless or environmental refugees if 17 percent of low-lying areas went under water—an inevitability when sea level rises a few feet. "Please consider climate change in your development assistance. Please, please, please keep in mind we have our own development target," he said in an impassioned address to the envoys. The adviser said IPR (intellectual property rights) and TRIPs (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) were impediments to transfer of knowledge. The World Trade Organisation carved out a role for itself in the global governance of complex intellectual property regimes by forcing TRIPs on the developing countries. Failure to comply with them will lead to trade sanctions. The main argument against the TRIPs is, the costs could far outweigh the benefits for the developing countries. "Please do not make them (climate change technology) too costly for us." He said Bangladesh has some knowledge too, which "we want to share". "Share knowledge (with us) that you have." For Bangladesh, the gravest development challenge is to lift some 50-55 million people out of poverty in the shortest possible time. Karim pointed to the climate change that will disrupt, sometimes violently, agricultural output. The macroeconomic and social dislocations will be mind-boggling, he warned. Karim proposed an international centre for climate studies with facilities for research and which can be accessed by everyone. His speech also focused on the ruined Sundarbans that had acted as the windbreaker "otherwise the human and property losses could be much higher". "But this means that the Sundarbans has to be rehabilitated in some form to bring it back to its natural splendour. Mind you this is one programme which is both adaptation and mitigation," he said.