A problem and the idea of transparency for development

Developing countries have major problems and their situation hasn´t changed in the last decades, besides exception like South Korea.
Social romanticism and development aid is and has been on the agenda of the global community´s, but it has failed , BECAUSE:

1. Financial aid helps the governmental elite of developing countries to maintain their power.
2. Criticism on developing countries does not reach the population. The population remains unknowing, which leads to no economic growth.
3. Humanitarian help “soothes the pain”, inhibits change and leads to exhorbitant overpopulation, which “eats up” every little piece of economic growth and inhibits development.
4. all “free” transfer of money and goods to the developing countries destroys local economic development and makes people dependant on development aid.

Without “economic development” the people neither have money, anything in their stomachs, nor a brighter future to look forward to.

Our Project wants to show an alternative to conventional development aid:
Transparency, information transfer, and education – a combination which leads to enlightenment and understanding. Ideally, this is all a society needs for sound development.
Countries like South Korea have demonstrated this path of development.

General transparency issues are:

• technology
• infrastructure
• mentality
• education
• business models
• corruption
• information management

The goal is to optimize the existing and creating something new.
The doorway is communication – transfer of knowledge!

The unique feature of our project is a one-month-stay in rural Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world – during the least pleasing time of year. This means 40°+ centigrade, constant rain, flooding, malaria, lack of food, contaminated water, etc.

New thinking through experiencing

Additional information: Corruption against transparency

Corruption is the result of information protectionism and the „misuse” of power. Usually affected by strong hierarchies, the traditional etiquette and mentality of a country and exorbitant knowledge differences corruption appears as some type of black market. Corruption therefore is more a symptom than the problem’s root. In fact it sometimes even has positive effect. It creates a black market to balance deficits in supply and demand. However the missing competition in this typically monopolized black markets reveals a great potential for economic growth. Necessary is the shift of power from the top to the bottom. Only in a society where power is shared, separated and controlled and where informal power networks are transparent corruption can be reduced. Helping people to help themselves through „transparency for development“ is the only way to achieve a lasting change in the present morals. Unfortunately most of the needed discussion in Bangladesh is happening online - but free from censorship. (Change Bangladesh)

ABC published this quote by a representative of the caretaker government of Bangladesh:

"May be some of you are thinking that you are indulging in your intellectual efforts sitting in a different country (a safe place) and you are beyond reach. Very wrong. If military wants to get you, it will get you. In fact, you will struggle on your own to catch the next available flight to Dhaka." (from a comment in the guardian, a cross comment by "Live it lively")

- A comment on corruption by the "unheard voices" by Rahat
- A comment on the cost of coruption by live it lively
- A comment on Corruption, reforms and a new political party by bdoza
- A comment on the "Get of Corruption" Drive by Angelmorn
- Comments on Corruption by Tasneem Khalil and friends

Corruption is an extremely sensitive topic in Bangladesh as I experienced so far. In many Asian countries corruption is something people remain silent about. For governmental officials in Bangladesh it is actually forbidden to talk about corruption without a special permission. The common people in Bangladesh often react very irritated and seem to be hurt in their honour and pride if you address the topic corruption.

Iftekhar Zaman Excecutive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh underlines his sceptics with the Transparency International report on corruption that declared Bangladesh five times the most corrupt nation worldwide. He tries to draw the attention away from Bangladesh and the government and is pointing out that organizations and companies from the "wealthy nations" caused most bigger corruption scandals in the developing countries. He adds that the developed nations as the developing countries both have to fight with corruption and the one sided attention might lead into a wrong direction.
(survey on corruption by Iftekhar Zaman, statement of Iftekhar Zaman about corruption in Bangladesh)

Nevertheless a change might have already happened. Corruption is declared to be a public topic which will be now finally solved by the military. The Bengali people supposivly support the military caretaker government strongly that tries to fight corruption and clean up whatever has to be cleaned up. Finally the strong hand of the Bengali military brings Bangladesh back on the right track because they know what has to be done.

This elementary seek for a strong leader in insecure and chaotic times (Popper) is rather ironic as the result of this coup is an even stronger concentration of power and the Bengali people do not know more than before.

But we will wait and see how the caretaker government will „succeed“.

Here are two interessting comments on corruption concerning the present situation in Bangladesh by Al Jazeera – an America friendly TV station.






Extra: Bangladesh is known as a very tolerant country with people of different origins and religions living together peacefully. Still there seem to be exceptions:

Additional information: business for development

To build business means to design and sell a product that somebody else is willing to pay for. The resulting improvements of any working process helps to develop an economy. To obtain the needed insights and inspiration to create a new product or service transparency is needed. Only through a visible incentive motivation is induced.
Those are very basic thoughts - causally determined - which are the essential basis of many successful organizations and initiatives making a change in Bangladesh.

In the following I will introduce some examples:

BRAC is an integrated network organization providing legal education, credit, health insureance and business oportunities through there store chain named Aarong.



Cellbazaar founded by Kamal Quadir - brother of Iqbal Quadir – is a sophisticated sms based market plattform. I found the following video on a very nice blog by arvetica.



If you want to know more about business in bangladesh - here are some information plattforms

velki
business info bangladesh
bgyellowpages
Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry

I also recommend the commercial guide of the U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh. It contains basic information about the Bengali market from an outside view. At this point the United States are still the major source of direct investments in Bangladesh. However the missing transparency and the unknown etiquette of making presents gives Western Investors a difficult time. Nevertheless especially Asian investors reveal an increasing interest in Bangladesh. Singapore, India, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea are the biggest second tier investors. On Bengali business portals Chinese Companies are very present – this is maybe a sign for a possible trend in the future.


Extra: Jacqueline Novogratz is giving a diplomatic lesson in favor of giving aid through incentives - not through charity. She critizes the moral absolution defined by the sum of money transfered to developing countries and demands a shift to a market based market-based philanthropy. Most of all incentives need transparency - for development!

Open classroom for transparency for development

Recently we added a new blog as plattform for comments on transparency for development. We invite everybody to contribute to a fruitfull information flow. Write an email to transparency.for.development@gmail.com to post a comment on this blog.

thank you

Project update on transparency for development

Just to give all interest groups a short update of what we are doing at the moment:
This week we were very busy contacting potential sponsors and partners. Thanks to everyone for your support and feedback, it looks like we will be able to make the project become reality.

We will keep you informed

Additional information: A tribute to the 3rd world view

The blog "3rd world view" is a great blog about issues from and around Bangladesh. I chose three very interesting Article for a a little more "transparency for development" :-)

cheers

Microlending -> a "fresh" future trend in the financial world

As in every society a look beyond one's own nose also for a journalist is a challenge. The self-imposed moral borders are critical in period of change.
As French and German journalists have a problems with the denial of social romanticism…As Russian journalist have problems with the belief into democracy…
Here an article about the self-censorship in Bangladesh


This is a comment on an article about climate change and poverty in Bangladesh.

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a candy for the interested: a clip from the excellent movie “surplus” illustrating the paralyzing struggle around social romantics, consumerism, economic understanding and ignorance of the western world

Additional information: technology for development

You don't often see great ideas to reduce poverty. Here is a great video which just shows the background of GrameenPhone in Bangladesh, which boast to reduce poverty with connecting poor people who had no access to telecommunication (I am ignoring the criticisms against it, which is a broader issue).

"Connectivity increases productivity and reduces poverty"

- Iqbal Quadir, founder of Gonofone and GrameenPhone. He is currently the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program in Development Entrepreneurship, Senior Research Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the founding co-editor of Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, a journal published by MIT Press. (Wikipedia)

Via On:Philanthropy

Project update and additional information

additional information: Views from and about Bangladesh - for a better understanding

about the elite perception of poverty in bangladesh - a nice pinch of Brecht's alienation

Private-public investment in infrastrucutre

A different view we are used to - an article about Dr. Yunus

a quick review Dr. Yunus' visit in Berlin

general information about Bangladesh

Finally a blog by a respected Bengali journalist who was recently picked up by the police




the newsletter will be out at the end of this week
therefore mail to transparency.for.development@gmail.com to be added

final information brochure no. 1

On friday we finished our information brochure - transparency for development - supported by Marius, Tanya, Ulf, Nils, Christoph, Joy, Joerg and many more. A big thank you to everybody.

We also finished the sponsoring modalities, media papers, budget paper, cvs, etc. AND we incorporated a GbR (Gesellschaft buergerlichen Rechts) which will provide and ensure the needed financial reliability for our sponsors.


Here is a link for our brochure:

-> please send us your comments and suggestions for improvements to

transparency.for.development@gmail.com

we are continously updating the brochure

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history II - the first Weekend

On the 21st and 22nd of April we first met to create an outline for the project. Bryan visited Jochen and me in Mannheim and Aleksandra joined us on skype. In two very effective days we gave our project a basis.





We were very much inspired by Joy Kiiru from Kenia and Somansh Bansal from india who both made a great presentation about micro loans in Muenster earlier in April. One obvious problem appeared to be the evolvement of present human potential. The availability of capital seems to be one important criterion but without the right infrastructure, education and transparency & chances – however – the available capital leads to nothing.





Therefore, it was our aim from the beginning to create an integrated scientific research combining all these issues and find possible synergies in alternative scenarios for a future development of Bangladesh. Together with Professors from our universities (Mannheim, Cologne and Moscow) we discussed a proper way to design the research papers.

So far everybody made an abstract and summarized methods, references and goals of his/her paper. However the heart of our work will be the one-month stay in Bangladesh in August, which will give us the insights!!
- more imaginary: turn our pink glasses transparent. We believe that the right view on the data is essential to be successful with our mission: to create more transparency. Admittedly we do not obtain the needed perceptions for this project in our universities.




Nevertheless we are all familiar with certain issues shaping the situation in Bangladesh through our personal travel experiences including the religion, the overpopulation and the natural circumstances.



22nd of April:



6 am Sunday



2 am Monday

Bangladesh Festival 2007, Moscow

Dear all!

I am happy to tell that yesterday I visited Bangladesh Festival at the Embassy of Bangladesh in Russian Federation.

The first thing that attracted my attention was beautiful colourful national costumes that Bengali woman were wearing. Then it was a strong spicy smell from the food kiosks that were installed in the yard of the Embassy. Everything for 30 rubles!

Most of the action that was on the stage except for the songs and dances was difficult to understand. Should get a rapid basic course of Bengali in order not to get lost in the country;)

This is about good emotions.

During the festival I had a great chance to meet with Embassy officials and tell them about "Transparency for development". The contacts were exchanged. It's time now to give them more information.

history I - how everything started

In March of 2007 the three of us, Bryan Simis, Bjoern Herrmann and Jochen Wolf met Bibi Russell in Cologne at the “11th World Business Dialogue” congress. Bibi Russell talked about her development aid program she conducts in Bangladesh with her own project called “Fashion For Development”. A very successful program that can stand as an example of how successful developmental aid can be when it has the right appendages.

Bibi Russell, who believes devoutly in the handcraft of her fellow landsmen, helps the poor by giving them occupation in the textile business and by that, a chance to overcome poverty by themselves, in dignity.
In our conversations we discovered mutual cogitations and ideas and finally found ourselves inspired to start a project of our own.



Bibi



Jochen and Bryan



Bryan with Bibi's scarf



Bjoern