Proposal to Alleviate Poverty in Bangladesh

This has been cross posted at Dristipat, a Bangladeshi human rights blog and forum. The full proposal can be downloaded here. Also see Progressive Bangladesh for two articles on the issue.

The challenge was to propose an idea which would have the greatest impact on poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. After nine months of living and working in the country as volunteers, my colleague Tim Sowula and I realised that the answer was all around us. There are many marginalised groups in Bangladesh; indigenous people, farmers afflicted by the Monga famines, HIV sufferers – but they compromise a tiny minority in a country of over 145 million. When the purpose of intervention is to reach as many people as possible at the lowest end of the social scale, the stand-out constituency is the rickshaw pullers. Rickshaw pullers are the essential cogs in Bangladesh’s machine. And they deserve better.

Therefore, through the nationalisation and rationalisation of non motorised urban transport, we propose to incorporate the two million rickshaw pullers in Bangladesh into the formal economy as public workers within a sustainable, pollution-free, low cost urban transport network. If the rickshaw industry were nationalised, passengers would not simply be paying someone to cycle them around, they would be contributing to Bangladesh’s biggest public service, a bigger transportation economy than Biman and the Railways combined. By formalising this enormous economy – 6% of Bangladesh’s GDP – we believe it would be possible to bring economic and social uplift to rickshaw pullers, bring better public transport to Bangladesh’s cities, and reach nearly 15% of the total population. Our proposal is sweeping in its scope but efficient in its implementation. It is a feasible and equitable way of bringing positive change to some of Bangladesh’s most marginalised communities

If an intervention wishes to make as large a social impact as possible then taking account the combination of the community size, and its economic and social contribution and position, targeting the conditions of rickshaw pullers has to be a priority. As bideshis, it seems to us that considering their importance to Bangladesh’s economic, social and cultural life and how hard they toil towards this, the scarcity of reward enjoyed by rickshaw pullers, their lack of rights and lowly status is astonishing. Our proposal would aim to raise their social status, increase their income and ensuring that this is secure, and rationalise the transport of Bangladesh so that it can be more efficient and effective, which is essential for any country’s wider development.

Crucially, the behaviour of users will have to change very little, and the economic cost to them of the change will be zero. Service users would simply find that what was once a private service is now a public one, and they would need to purchase tokens from local retailers, a viable and already tested system for other services. At the same time, every single person who uses a rickshaw in Bangladesh – almost the entire population will become a stakeholder; will directly contribute to the alleviation of poverty, disadvantage and inequity amongst the people of Bangladesh. The beauty of our proposal lies in its simplicity, and economic sustainability. After living and working here it is obvious that Bangladesh, despite the challenges it faces, has some of the hardest working, most patriotic and determined people in the world. It also has wealth, a fluid cash economy – but like most countries, too much cash ends up concentrated in tiny minority. We have tried, therefore, to devise a scheme that can harness that passion, commitment, and surplus capital with the minimum disruption to the cultural fabric of the nation. Nationwide approximately $4.1 million flows in to the rickshaw economy every day. $2.9m remains the property of the rickshaw pullers. The excess $1.2m is therefore money that, were the rickshaw sector nationalised, could flow back every day in to the Bangladeshi state - $529m per year. Given that the Bangladeshi national budget for 2007-2008 totalled $12.63 billion, with $3.83b allocated under the Annual Development Plan (ADP), our project would effectively introduce an increase of 14% to the ADP. And the cost of implementing our proposal? We estimate this to be around $160m, which set against guaranteed annual revenue of over $500m, is certainly justifiable.

This proposal’s five main objectives are designed to have as wide an impact as is possible without causing disruption to this vital transport network. It will bring economic security to the rickshaw puller with the creation of a regular income stream; it will facilitate the raising of rickshaw pullers’ social status by making them formal public workers with rights and responsibilities; it will generate substantial, sustainable capital for investment into upgrading rickshaw garage infrastructure, bringing health and other social benefits to rickshaw pullers; it will incorporate rickshaw pullers into society by making their garages centres of development activity and education; and it will improve the standard of public transport in Bangladesh’s urban centres.

Whilst an intervention of this scale would require careful management and meticulous organisation, we believe that it is far from utopian, or unrealistic given the challenges faced by the government of Bangladesh. On the contrary, an intervention on this scale could only be managed by an authority with the scope and power of the State, and the political incentives to the government for pursuing an eminently realisable goal are obvious. The legitimacy of any government, especially in a democratic system rests on how it manages the welfare of the people under its charge. We believe that our proposal clearly would make a huge positive contribution to the welfare of nearly 15% of Bangladeshis, specifically those who need it most, and the benefits of adopting our proposal outweigh any potential difficulties.

Our proposal aims to not just improve the educational standard and the physical well-being of the rickshaw puller and their families and dependents, but also socially and psychologically empower the rickshaw puller. They would be freed from their dependency on their mechanical master, the rickshaw, currently their only source of survival and also what entrenches their social immobility. Instead they would be lifted to the level of full Bangladeshi citizens, enjoying rights and benefits, providing a service and carrying responsibilities, paying taxes, and aiding the collection of a vast previously untapped revenue for their nation and its people. By empowering the rickshaw puller and also providing them with material and educational assistance, you are providing them with the opportunity to not only take pride in their work and their status, but also to change it.

Tim Sowula and Tom Wipperman

Driving with Dignity Launch Night

After six months of planning, proposals, field work, preparation, negotiation and cajoling, yesterday our rickshaw puller photographic exhibition was launched at the Russian Cultural Centre in Dhaka, and was opened by the Dutch and Norwegian Ambassadors. I am writing this entry from the gallery, sitting at a desk in an empty white room surrounded by 30 of my photographs hanging on the walls plus some of the rickshaw pullers own photographs, and the ten stories that they told us. It is very strange to have my photos on display for the Dhaka public to judge and debate, but so far today (and the day is nearly over) only four people have visited, so we are not at risk of being engulfed.

Yesterday was a long day, trying to ensure that everyone could attend, and would do on time. Bangladeshi time is about half an hour (or more) behind our time, and so whilst the two European Ambassadors arrived on time, the Bangladeshis were very late.

Then we had the ‘who are these people farce’. We had met the Norwegian Ambassador and so we were able to say hello, but we had not met the Dutch Ambassador before. He introduced himself to me and we talked a bit, but my ED and Chairman somehow convinced themselves that this was the Norwegian Ambassador’s husband (or someone else entirely), and so when we were sitting in the anteroom waiting to start, they asked me aloud when the Dutch Ambassador would arrive, despite sitting right next to him. Luckily, it seems that being an ambassador in Bangladesh prepares you for such incidents.

Our launch was attended by five of the rickshaw pullers that we had worked with, plus a load of VSO volunteers and some people from NGOs and multilaterals – Wateraid, Concern, Save the Children, UNICEF, and the British High Commission. It ensured that there was a good audience for our guests, and that we had avoided the risk of the ambassadors addressing an empty room full of pictures.

We had speeches from the editors of two national dailies, and also from my Executive Director and Kamal, a rickshaw puller from Mohammadpur who we had worked with. Kamal was incredibly impressive, given that he has never attended school and cannot read or write at all. We briefed him and gave him the microphone and he was able to talk and talk about the problems he faces. Although the long term impact is pretty minimal, at least for those few minutes he was an equal, with ambassadors, expats, development workers and government officials listening to him and being interested in what he had to say.

It was also very moving to take the pullers into the exhibition hall for a private viewing before we opened it up. I think that when, in February and March, we first met them and said what we hoped to do, they were not really certain and bit wary of us. They did not believe we would pay them 200 Taka (which we did) and they did not believe that they would get a camera to take photographs with (which they did), but to see their pictures handing in a gallery, and their stories on the wall was quite startling for them. Most had never been in a gallery before, as normally they are denied access because of their profession and their class. Rickshaw pullers normally drive wearing lungis, but they turned up wearing trousers and their smartest shirts- they seemed very proud to be part of the project.

Unfortunately, Anisur, the 12 year old who we worked with, was very ill. He really looked very drawn and was showing the effects of nearly a year of rickshaw pulling. The event really revealed the lack of knowledge that such people have: I put a little extra Taka in Anisur’s pay envelope and told him that he should buy an icecream to make him feel better; some of the other pullers then began to ask me how they could treat hepatitis, jaundice and HIV. The lack of education is very difficult to comprehend when even the most ill educated in the West know so much: it was incredibly sad that what I hoped would be a small treat for someone who cannot afford them was actually interpreted as a genuine medical treatment.

Overall my organisation should be very pleased with the outcome. We looked very professional, and lots of people came along. The television stations were there as were the newspapers. My article was published on the day in New Age (click here and scroll down to see it) and this attracted some people. I made the staff give out brochures and their business cards and to talk to people so that they could start to build up a relationship with different organisations.

The aim of the project – to establish my NGO as the leading authority of rickshaw pullers in the country, and to advocate for a respect agenda for rickshaw pullers – was in some way fulfilled. Our media coverage and contacts have ensured that some people are talking about it. The challenge now is to build on the momentum and really drive the organisation forward. I think there are about six weeks in which to do this, and afterwards this opportunity will be lost. So I am hoping that my NGO will start to take some initiative.

The rickshaw pullers, I hope, have valued being part of something and finding someone to pay attention to them. This time round they were laughing, joking and trusting, and there is a strong rapport there that can be built upon for future work. The biggest problem with development work, in my opinion, is when the poor and the marginalised are invited into a new world for a brief moment, then dropped back into their old one and forgotten. I hope that we can sustain the involvement of the pullers that we worked with, as they have powerful stories and are fascinating people.

Driving with Dignity

I have spent the last few weeks working on a project with my organisation looking at the social status and dignity of rickshaw pullers. I’ve been surprisingly busy, and hence have not managed to update this for a while. But perhaps this can be a little insight into the work we are doing.

Rickshaws are ubiquitous in Bangladesh: they crowd the roads pulling two or three passengers, fridges, plastic flowers, food (alive and dead) and anything else that can be crammed on the small plastic covered seats. Rickshaws are found all over south and south-east Asia, in many different forms, but it is in Bangladesh that they really go overboard. New rickshaws are covered in garish decorations, streamers, bells and paintings of mosques, lilies, actors, tigers and futuristic cities. They then fill the cities and villages, being the main mode of transport – 57% of all journeys in Bangladesh are on a rickshaw. Rickshaw pulling represents 6% of national GDP, 14 million people (10% of the total population) rely on it directly or indirectly for their livelihoods, and there are 800,000 pullers in Dhaka alone. It is at the economic, cultural and social heart of Bangladesh.

However, rickshaw pullers have some of the lowest social status going. No one wants to be a rickshaw puller: they are beaten by the police, cheated by passengers, abused by other road users, robbed, insulted and generally ignored. There is a real dichotomy between their cultural and economic importance and their social status and public attitudes towards them. So we have devised a small advocacy project designed to target social attitudes towards rickshaw pullers and directly empower pullers to access policy makers and the public in general to demand their rights – that to dignified, respected work.

To do this we have worked with ten pullers who live in garages across the slums of the city. Rickshaw pullers do not own their rickshaws but rent them from local mahajan (strong men) at about 50 Taka a day. The garages are owned by the mahajan, and consist of a small bamboo scaffold with a platform on top, on which the pullers sleep. Often these stick out over swamps or are next to filth-filled pools. In general, conditions are miserable. However, most people in Bangladesh do not know how the pullers live.

Our project has been to take case studies with the different pullers, and match this with photographs of them, their work and lives, and to exhibit this at an exhibition attended by diplomats, development workers and so on. In addition, we have asked pullers to take their own photographs to reflect their ideas of dignity and their social status, which we also plan to exhibit. The pullers will go to the exhibition and talk to visitors. This gives them access to a space that they normally cannot enter, and dialogue with people that never talk to them.

We are also producing (funding pending) a photograph book giving the photographs, case studies, some articles on rickshaw pullers and a brief history to try to expand the scope of the work and to widen the impact.

The exhibition will (hopefully) be held in Dhaka in May, and the book also be produced by that time.

The advantage for my placement is that I can use this as a method of teaching participatory research methods, project planning, dealing with donors, getting funding proposals completed, media and communications strategies, writing newspaper articles and academic journal articles. It should help meet a great many of my objectives for my job and will expose my organisation to the wider development community in Bangladesh.

There should be a tangible impact on the rickshaw pullers we work with as well, as they will actually get a voice to use, whereas normally they are kept silent. Some of their stories are incredible, and when they are all finished we will but them up on a website. One man is 75 and has pulled a rickshaw for 40 years. He spent 5 years in prison for participation in a murder, though he says he did not do it. Another is 12 a year old boy. Yet another has had five rickshaws stolen for him and been beaten by the police. There are some tragic and some funny tales that have come out, and with a bit of luck it will greatly change perceptions of rickshaw pullers, or at least their own perceptions of themselves.

And when the book is ready, you can all buy one.