Role of Social Capital in Good Governance the Case of Prdp in Bangladesh

Mr. Mihir Kumar Roy; Mr. Mizanur Rahman

doi:https://doi.org/10.51768/dbr.v16i2.162201520

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Role of Social Capital in Good Governance the Case of Prdp in Bangladesh

Mihir Kumar Roy, Mizanur Rahman

Vol 16 , Issue 2 , July - December 2015 | Pages: 69-82 | Case Study

https://doi.org/10.51768/dbr.v16i2.162201520

Published Online: November 27, 2015

Author Details ( * ) denotes Corresponding author

1. * Mihir Kumar Roy, Professorr & Dean, City University, Panthapath Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh (mihir.city@gmail.com)

2. Mizanur Rahman, Joint Director, Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, (BARD) Kotbari, Comilla,, Dhaka, Bangladesh (mizan_bard@yahoo.com)

The study was undertaken with the objective of identifying the institutional mechanisms for promoting transparency, accountability, and villagers’ participation in Gram Committee (GC) activities under Participatory Rural Development Project (PRDP) link model that emanated from creation of social capital in rural society; and to test a research question i.e., does formation of social capital contribute to better implementation of GC activities under PRDP link model?

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was primarily based on qualitative analysis. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected from Chairman, Vice-Chairman, secretary, male and female members of GCs, NBDs extension agents, UP representatives and secretaries, general villagers and project officials. Secondary data were collected by applying content analysis method through looking into project documents, brochures, research reports, GC and UCC resolution, GC guidelines, scheme preparation and approval documents, scheme application form, declaration from for giving soil and land by the land owners for GC scheme, attendance register of GC and relevant books were consulted.

Findings: The study revealed that the prolonged intervention of PRDP link model helped formation of social capital in the study area through imbuement and better internalization of a sense of cooperation; togetherness; mutual trust, communication and network; solidarity, developing relationship and interactions among the community activities performed by the GC, which was in fact the pivotal institution of PRDP for ushering development and transformation at the grassroots.

Research Implications: It appeared that formation of social capital contributed to GC becoming a relatively effective and socially viable institution for local development that demanded better governance in GC, which ultimately facilitated better implementation of PRDP model in the project villages. It was found that the institutional mechanisms of promoting transparency, accountability to the villagers, and community participation in GC are embedded in the process of formation of GC.

Practical Implications: During its long time implementation, GC has found a sustainable process of local development through donor’s support. But in Bangladesh, it has become a common phenomenon that such donor supported best practices end with the withdrawal of donor support and termination of implementation phase. Although, overtime GC developed social capital in the project villages but withdrawal support from the donor may inhibit its self-sustaining strength due to lack of matching grant system and its other unique mechanism of PRDP model. Most of the time, experiences and lessons learnt from such donor’s support based best practices cannot be properly utilized due to lack of strong advocacy and adopting appropriate means for mainstreaming it nation-wide as such project experiments suffer from the basic problem of sustainability.

Keywords

Social Capital, Governance, Participatory Rural Development, Nation Building Departments, Gram Committee, Union Development Officer.

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