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Make law to protect citizens’ privacy: roundtable
Staff Correspondent
Speakers at a roundtable called for enacting a rights law to protect the citizens’ privacy. They said that neither the government nor private companies had the right to infringe on individuals’ privacy on the pretext of security or economic reasons.
They said that these days the government as well as private companies demand too many information of citizens for providing passports, cell phone connections, voter ID. They also opposed phone tapping.
They said that the citizens in Bangladesh were often deprived of using new technologies, like facebook.
In recent years, they said, mobile phone tapping and internet surveillance deprived the citizens’ privacy.
They said that service providers often infringe into citizens’ privacy by demanding their voter ID cards, which contain too many of their details.
They said that Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission was not at all an independent body as it is controlled by telecommunications ministry on the pretext of national security.
Enact privacy act to protect personal information
Staff Correspondent
Speakers at a roundtable discussion yesterday called upon the government to enact a privacy act to protect privacy, personal information, correspondence and means of communication of people.
They pointed out that individual privacy is a constitutional right of every citizen and yet it is being violated at every step of everyone's life and no one can take legal actions against such violation.
The discussion titled "Privacy rights and citizen's concerns" was organised by VOICE in association with Privacy International at the Cirdap auditorium in the city.
"Article 43 of the constitution says every citizen shall have the right to privacy of his correspondence and other means of communication," said Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, a rights-based organisation.
People’s involvement can ensure better results out of development efforts
Staff Correspondent
Rights and development activists asked the civil society organisations on Wednesday to engage with the donors and the government for effective utilisation of foreign assistance in development activities.
Speaking at a consultation meeting they said that no development effort, without the involvement of the common people, could provide the desired results. They called for involving the people with development efforts, from planning to implementation.
Two forums, Aid Accountability Group and The Reality of Aid, jointly hosted the national consultation session on ‘engagement of civil society organisations in aid effectiveness’ at the National Press Club.
Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation chairman Qazi Kholikuzzaman Ahmad said it was time to adopt a plan to make Bangladesh, a self-reliant and welfare state, an election pledge of the Awami League-led alliance government.
He said that the civil society had a huge responsibility to mobilise and involve the people with the process of development. Kholikuzzaman said that Bangladesh needed a plan to exit from the aid burden.
Interview with Ahmed Swapan Mahmud on the CIVICUS Blog
VOICE's Executive Director Ahmed Swapan Mahmud was profiled recently on the CIVICUS World Assembly blog on the CitizenShift website. The assembly will take place in Montreal this year, and will focus on three main themes: Aid Effectiveness. Economic Justice and Environmental Justice. A portion of the original blog post is re-posted here.
Bangladesh is a major recipient of foreign aid money, collecting over 2 billion $US in 2008, according to the latest OECD stats available. The largest portion of this money was spent towards Economic Infrastructure and Services and the vague "Multisector" areas, while less than a fifth of it was spent on Health and Education.
Transparency, accountability in aid disbursement demanded
Some 21 civil society organizations staged a protest rally on Tuesday to denounce the role of the development partners and their allied ‘elite class’ and bureaucrats in development process, saying they were responsible for misusing foreign aid.
They [the development partners in Bangladesh, the ‘elite class’ and the bureaucrats] have made the country increasingly indebted since liberation, the protesters from rights based organizations told the rally.
Bangladesh government on Monday began a two-day dialogue in Dhaka with multilateral lenders and donor countries seeking approval of the poverty reduction strategy, a lender-driven development document.
Parallel to the ongoing BDF meeting, the rights organizations — Arpan, AMKS, Eso, Bangladesh Krishak Federation, CSRL, EquityBD, Kishani Sohva, Lead Trust, On line knowledge centre, Protikrit, Karmajibi Nari, La via campesina, MFTD, Prantik, Purbasha, RCSV, Swadhin Bangla Garments Sramik Federation, Solidarity Workshop, Sirajganj Flood Forum, Uddipan, Voice, and World Development Movement, UK—organised the rally in front of National Press Club in the city.
The organizers demanded sovereign, democratic and responsible financing to ensure that the benefits of aid and loans reach the poor through a transparent and accountable manner.
'Donors' support destructive for Bangladesh'
Speakers at a press conference yesterday said loans and grants of the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other international financial institutions are destructive for Bangladesh as the donor agencies take away more kickbacks than what they have provided as aid or loans.
Only 25 percent of the foreign aid and loans provided to the country go to the target group while the rest of them are attained for the auxiliary and support services, they added.
The speakers said this at the press conference organised by VOICE, a rights-based research group, and Aid Accountability Group, a civil society alliance, at the National Press Club in the city.
They called on the government to reject destructive aid and formulate an independent economic policy instead of PRSP and to make all loan agreements public ensuring transparency and accountability.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=126405
Rights group urges govt to reject conditional lending
VOICE, a rights research organisation, on Sunday called upon the government to reject ‘destructive foreign aid’ that has crippled national policymaking by robbing it of ‘sovereignty and independence’.
The rights leaders, at a press conference ahead of the meeting of the Bangladesh Development Forum, insisted that the government should announce when it will stop receiving conditional external assistance and begin to prepare the national budget with domestic resources only.
They added that only 25 per cent of foreign aid and loans reached the target group while the rest went to auxiliary and support services including the fees of foreign consultants.
‘The people of Bangladesh are becoming more and more indebted due to the loans given by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and thus have become more vulnerable to foreign manipulation,’ Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, told reporters at the National Press Club.
Conditions for development loans must be made public
BDF won’t accommodate people’s voices or representatives: VOICE
Rights group VOICE, complaining that people’s voices will not be heard nor their representatives accommodated in the upcoming dialogue between the government and global lenders, has demanded that that conditions imposed for, and the expenditure pattern of, foreign aid-funded development projects must be made public.
Referring to the meeting of the Bangladesh Development Forum scheduled to be held in Dhaka on February 15-16, VOICE has called for a debate on the relevance of external loans, which should involve politicians, professional groups, businesspeople, civil society dignitaries, and representatives of local government and community organisations.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the BDF meeting which will be attended by representatives of the Local Consultative Group, a forum of lending agencies and donor countries, and those of the newly emerging economic superpowers.
‘People from all strata of life do not have any access to the Forum although it demands greater participation of stakeholders,’ Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, noted in a position paper titled ‘Destructive Aid and Bangladesh Development forum 2010’.
Transparent role of NGOs urged
Speakers in a discussion meeting yesterday stressed the need for ensuring transparency among NGOs to make effective use of the foreign aid which they felt was necessary for equity based development.
They also suggested for the disclosure of NGOs activities including amount of aids they received and the mode of expenditures.
They were addressing the discussion 'Role of the Civil Society on Aid Effectiveness' jointly organised by Voice (Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment) and Aid Accountability Group at National Press Club in the city.
Contribute to dev, progress to make foreign aid more effective: EU envoy
The European Union ambassador in Dhaka, Stefan Frowein, has urged the civil society members to find a way to work together to elaborate common positions and lobby effectively to contribute in development and progress to make aid more effective.
‘This is especially true in Bangladesh… where civil society plays a crucial role as partner of the government improving the living conditions of thousands and thousands of people,’ he said while addressing a discussion at the National Press Club Tuesday morning.
Voice (Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment) and Aid Accountability Group jointly organised the discussion titled ‘Role of the Civil Society on Aid Effectiveness’.