Campaign on Right to Information

Coalition on Citizen Right to Information aims at establishing access to knowledge and information rights of people. It was formed with a number of organizations who are active in the field while VOICE as a founding executive member plays a very key and important role constituting the campaign and actions over the issue.

The coalition has already accomplished various activities including publishing leaflet, organizing mass gathering, rally, human chain, meetings etc to promote the movements on right to information. The activity news has been published in the newspapers and also broadcasted in television channels. Below please find the news.

A human chain demanding enactment of right to information act and ensure rights to information for people was formed in front of the national museum at Shahbag, Dhaka on 30 July 2006.
The speakers said that hindrances of information is creating corruption in the country, violation of human rights in the society and barring access to knowledge and information.

The law commission though drafted an information act in 2002, it remained in the darkness due to bureaucratic tangle while there also remains a number of loopholes in the draft act. The speakers urged to the government to enact the law taking appropriate measures.

The speakers also demanded cancellation of official secrecy act immediately. They also demanded accountability of the government and non-government service sectors including the transparency and accountability of the International Financial Institutions like WB and the IMF.

Free flow of information is indispensable to ensure transparent and accountable relationship among different sectors that helps building democracy in a country. Information can play key role combating corruption and ensuring good governance.

Among others, Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of Voice, Abed Reza, President of Metropolitan Bar Association, Rowshan Jahan, Coordinator of ALRD and the member secretary of the coalition Zakir Hossain spoke on the occasion.

Campaign on ICT

VOICE’s one of the core areas is media, communication rights and ICTs. It works to popularize alternative media communication system and thus strives for influencing policy advocacy issues on community media with special emphasis on community radio i.e. rural broadcasting, and analyzing the corporate media and globalization with a view to promote public participation and empowerment in decision making process, planning and management level. It mainly emphasizes establishing community radio to facilitate access to information of the poor and disadvantaged people so that they can use and share community issues by themselves. It facilitates to create an enabling environment to bridge the gap of information and communication technology between the rich and poor, between boys and girls, between urban and rural and between men and women. It strives toward for media democracy and promoting free flow of information especially to the untouched. It also analyses how the ‘globalization process’ affects the life and livelihood of the community people and gives importance to the role of community radio to face those challenges.

VOICE plays a very significant role in transferring knowledge and information to the community as it believes that to get information and communication facilities as right to people. It also works to strengthen the policy environment in favour of media communication and maintains relations to the NGOs working in the relevant field.

Campaign for Development Alternatives in Bangladesh

Mobilizing Civil and Political Society to Resist Bilateral & Multilateral Policy Impositions

Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) meeting held each year which determines the policy guidelines for the development of Bangladesh. In fact, in last three decades, in the name of development the international financial institutions and the corporate agencies of rich countries also determine their aid policy for county’s development. But if we keenly observe, we see those institutions mainly got the benefit though the policies are supposed to improve the socio-economic status of the country. In fact, the poverty reduction rate is not satisfactory which is below one per cent, though both foreign aid and loan are gradually increasing. Reality is that unexpectedly, the majority of people still remain under poverty line. The marginalization is increasing as well as the people’s struggle of life and livelihood is dangerously aggravating for the interventions of donors in national development policy. One of the major causes for not-changing the poverty situation in Bangladesh is for policy imposition by the donors. In last three decades development history clearly indicates that the foreign aid can’t alone solve the problems we have, rather in most cases, it creates a market, which mainly keeps their own interest. And with that point of view, this is also clear that the PRSP where people have least of the participation that is a lending policy can’t reduce the poverty situation at all.

The foreign aid must be condition free for self-reliance depending domestic resources. Foreign aid to Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dipped in the last 20 years. Foreign assistance constitutes 10 per cent of the GDP in the 80s, which now stands at 4 per cent. It is also observed that the donor’s money returned to them in a raft of ways. In last thirty years there were taka 180000 crore foreign aid in the public sector of which taka 135000 crore returned to the donor agencies or countries in different forms of which 13 % as consultancy, 12% as equipment suppliers’ fees, Besides, various vested interest groups plundered the money including bureaucrats and politicians of the country who took 7% of the total amount. And most of the remaining amount gobbled up by their local mediators. The International Financial Institutions like International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and the United States Aid (USAID) play dominant role and put conditions in granting loans that is crippling the political decision making process of the government. Donor agencies and the countries play a double standard role in granting loans and aid to developing countries. In formulating any national policy even in any national issue, there is a need for healthy debate bringing together the politicians, members of the civil society, NGOs, professional and citizen groups. In formulating Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, people’s active participation and their opinion is quite neglected which is prepared for getting foreign loan from donors. The PRSP document is not yet shared in parliament and people in general still quite ignorant though it is supposed to reduce poverty of the country as well changing the lot of the mass poor.

For a self-reliant country, national policy must be participatory where people from all walks of life including geographical variances should have the scope for active participation so that they can put their opinion, which must be honored.

BDF meeting is a closed-door meeting where people don’t have access and not least the scope for sharing people’s views and opinion. PRSP will be submitted in the meeting and donors will define guidelines and formulate policies for national development. Foreign aid has made the country indebted and burdened with huge foreign debt liabilities instead of benefiting the people. The aid though was taken for eradicating poverty and development of the country, the poverty rate is not at all satisfactory. Government can announce a target date for Bangladesh to stop accepting any foreign aid and loan and stop being the world's most famous country of beggars. If not next year, then the target should be not later than 2010.

Besides, people demands to the donors, in the spirit of honesty, transparency, and good governance, provide the public of Bangladesh with the following data for every project funded: e.g. the percentage of project funds which are believed to have been lost due to corruption at different levels, a breakdown of which groups are the immediate recipients of the funds (e.g. donor country citizens, local consultants, different income groups in Bangladesh, an independently conducted benefit incidence analysis giving a breakdown of who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the project, a clear statement of the specific conditionalities for the project, a signed declaration stating whether disbursement of the project funds may be used as leverage for other concessions or favours from the Government of Bangladesh.

Therefore, people’s demand condition-free foreign loan, discussion in parliament on foreign assistance, non-intervention of the IMF and WB in the allocation of financial and technical assistance, cancellation of PRSP prepared by the IMF and WB, domestic resource mobilization and preparation of a central plan to make the donor agencies accountable.

Questioning BDF (Bangladesh Development Forum) :

Public Demands for BDF

Demand for the Government of Bangladesh :

> Announce a target date for Bangladesh to stop accepting any foreign aid. If not next year, then the target should be not later than 2010.

Demand for Donors to Bangladesh :

> In the spirit of honesty, transparency and good governance, provide the public of Bangladesh with the following data for every project funded:

> The percentage of project funds which are believed to have been lost due to corruption at different levels;

> A breakdown of which groups are the immediate recipients of the funds (e.g. donor country citizens, local consultants, different income groups in Bangladesh);

> An independently conducted benefit incidence analysis giving a breakdown of who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the project;

> A clear statement of the specific conditionalities for the project;

> A signed declaration stating whether disbursement of the project funds may be used as leverage for other concessions or favours from the Government of Bangladesh.

This campaign was initiated in 2003 with a view to greater mobilization for raising critical awareness and people's voice against corporate globalization, against policy impositions and conditionalities of IFIs as well as building a new perspective involving civil and political actors of the society.

Campaign against World Bank Immunity :

VOICE as a founding member runs the campaign against WB’s illegal demand for immunity. We condemn the World Bank management that claims to Bangladesh Government to have "Institutional Immunity". Institution like World Bank forces Bangladesh to grace the Bank with complete legal immunity from the destruction and damage the Bank causes to the people.

We strongly demand the government of Bangladesh not to provide immunity, because this will create a bad precedence to other developing countries and it is not only the World Bank or other IFIs, but also the multinational and transnational companies will try to force government for such illegal immunity.

We request you to express solidarity to the people of Bangladesh against the injustice committed by the IFI's and WB’s illegal demand of Immunity.

Statement on the draft The International Financial Organizations (Amendment) Act-2004 of Government of Bangladesh to provide immunity to the World Bank from legal procedures in the country :

1. The government of Bangladesh has drafted a law regarding giving Immunity to the World Bank from all legal procedures of the country, which will be presented in the next September session of the Parliament for its approval. The law will be named as The International Financial Organization (Amendment) Act-2004.

2. In order to operate in the partner- countries Word Bank has to follow an Article of Agreement, which has approval from its Board of Directors. As per this article a law in the name of The International Financial Organization (Amendment) Act-1972, is already exists in the country. Under this law, a variety of facilities have been made available for the World Bank. For example, World Bank does not need to pay tax to the countries for it's income and properties, no legal action can be taken against any staff if he or she carries any activities as per the order of the world bank, no immigration laws can be applied for it's non-local staff.

3. Now World Bank is creating pressure on Bangladesh to have more absolute immunity as an institution from all legal proceedings of the country even which is not a statutory requirement or obligation of the countries where the Bank operate according to its article of agreement. And which is not within the frame of The International Financial Organization (Amendment) Act-1972. And this pressure has a link with the penalization of a case (case no-225/2000) by the ex-world bank Dhaka Based officer Ismat Zerin Khan. She was an employee of the Bank who was terminated. Zerin Khan than made an appeal to word bank Staff Association Tribunal that stated that there is a number of weakness and injustice in the dismissal. She fields this case in local court.

4. Despite facing the trial properly, World Bank has been making pressure on Bangladesh to immune himself or herself from any sort of legal procedure. But the article-8 The International Financial Organization (Amendment) Act-1972 and article-3 of 7of the Article of Agreement state that World Bank will not get immunity but as per article 8 of 7 it's staff will get the same as they have carried out the order. World bank has been exerting the pressure since 2001 i.e., from the time of caretaker government.

5. This amendment, which is proposing immunity to the Bank as an institution, is totally different from other partner countries of World Bank and as a result no citizen or state can file a case against World Bank if they are losers by the later. So it is violation of basic rights as mentioned in the constitution of Bangladesh and even if it is the violation universal human right.
We feel the Bank is a public institution although in spite of difference in relation to the voting power in the World Bank management system due to difference in yearly subscription and sharing in investment. Since partner countries invest those subscription and share out of public tax money, our demand World Bank must show accountable and transparent to the local people.

6. Although the Bank show the slogan " world without poverty" but World Bank and its supported institutions like IMF, IDA, and IBRD in fact have been working for protection of the interests of the multi national countries of the rich nations. In the name of financial assistance to the developmental project World Bank is serving the interests of a few vested people of the developing nations and so called advisors and intellectuals hired from rich nations.

7. We believe that the poor people, who are the victims of World Bank's sponsored projects, have the rights to sue them for compensation. To demand for legal justice from a public institution is a basic right of the people. We have achieved this constitutional right at the cost of our ancestor's blood in Bangladesh. We request to the government to dignify our constitutional rights by preventing World Bank enjoying such immunity from any legal implications.

In the same way we demand government to reconsider the law of immunity extended to the Asian Development Bank. Because this practice will encourage other donor agencies and multinational companies to come out with such demand of immunity which will destroy our entity as a sovereign nation.

The campaign against World Bank's Immunity is carried out by Alliance against World Bank's Immunity of which VOICE is one of the founding members.
Please endorse the statement: info@voicebd.org

Campaign on community radio :

Role of VOICE on Community Radio Movement in Bangladesh

VOICE is committed to popularize the community radio as an alternative medium of communication that ensure right to information and freedom of expression.

• Organize workshop on Necessity of ICT & Community Radio with Local Press

• Sensitize Print Media through Publishing booklet, articles and features

• Networking with NGOs, media houses to promote awareness on CR

• Study circle for sensitizing youth group (features writers, journalists, students

groups) on Community Radio

• Formulated Dhaka Declaration on Community Radio

• Building public discourse over community radio issue

• Advocacy for strengthening policy environment for Community Radio

• Drawing attention to the officials of Science & ICT Ministry in WSIS

• Organize national consultation meeting