Comilla Model
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Comilla Model is a rural development model that was pioneered in 1959 by Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, renamed in 1971 as Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), located on the outskirts of Comilla town. Akhter Hameed Khan, founder of the Comilla Model and the founder-Director of the Academy, conceived the idea[1] and developed the method of its implementation in the areas of agricultural and rural development on the principle of people's participatory role at the grassroots level and cooperatives.
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[edit] Raison d'etre
The Comilla Model was Dr Khan's reply to the failure of Village Agricultural and Industrial Development (V-AID) programme, launched in 1953 in East and West Pakistan with technical assistance from the US government. The V-AID was a governmental level attempt to promote citizens participation in the sphere of rural development.[2]
Comilla Model provided a methodology of implementation in the areas of agricultural and rural development on the principle of grassroots level cooperative participation by the people.[3] The initial concept was to provide a development model of programmes and institutions that could be replicated across the country.
[edit] Implementation
At the primary level, the project introduced a number of pilot projects beginning in 1959. There were twofold objectives behind the introduction of these projects: first, to provide a real-life learning situation for the trainees at the Academy; and second, to devise development model(s) of programmes and institutions which would serve as model initiatives.[4] In guiding and operating the projects, a set of principles and strategies were formulated as the bases for developing the pilot projects, resulting in a unique rural development approach.[5]
[edit] Salient features
The salient features of the Comilla Model may be identified as:
- Institutionalization of the whole process of rural development being the key-word of the model, major emphasis was given to the promotion of development and of refining of various institutions, both public and private, and establishing a system of interrelationships between them;
- Involvement of both public and private sectors in the process of rural development;
- Development of an institutional leaderships in every village, such as the manager, model farmers, women organizers, youth leaders, and village accountants, to manage and sustain the development efforts;
- Development of three basic infrastructures (administrative, physical and organisational) for the comprehensive development of rural areas;
- Priority on decentralized and coordinated rural administration in coordination with officials of various government departments and the representatives of public organisations.
- Comprehensive development by integrating and coordinating various complementary rural development services and project activities, planning and administrative procedures, vertical and horizontal relationship, decision making and interaction among various sub-sectors at the local, regional and national levels;
- Education, organisation and discipline were made the prime characteristics of the model;
- Heavy emphasis on economic and technological factors for building a prosperous and progressive society;
- Development of a stable and progressive agriculture to improve the conditions of the farmers, and provide employment to rural labour force.
These features distinguish Comilla Model from other rural development approaches, such as community development, target group approach, and intensive area development.[6]
[edit] Difficulties with Model
However, not all the aspects of the model worked smoothly. In the 1960s, the escalating loan defaults became a major concern. According to Dr A.H. Khan:
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“The problem of wilful and mischievous defaulters is specially alarming. Historically the old cooperative system was captured by influential people and they castrated it by wilful default. The same sort of people want to perform the same operation on the new cooperative system. They are powerful and well informed. They know that the old sanctions (certificates, notices, pressure by officers) are now dead, and they can repudiate their obligations with impunity."[7].
Chowdhury[8] reported in 1989 that only 61 of the 400 cooperatives were still functioning. This was attributed to the problems with weak internal controls, diversion of funds, and ineffective external supervision.
[edit] Lessons from the Comilla experience
Being the first initiative of its kind in developing world, Comilla Model provided an experience to be profited by later practitioners. In the early years of BRAC (NGO) and Grameen Bank in the 1970s, both Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Fazle Hasan Abed realized that the strategy of including poor people in cooperatives organized to serve the whole community does not always work. Instead, both directly targeted the poorest people, while attempting to minimize the participation and influence of the relatively less-poor. Later cooperative approaches, like RD-12, also adopted a targeting strategy.[9]
Both also attempted to catalyze collective enterprises that were locally owned and controlled. However, problems with internal control and elite manipulation continued, and by the 1990s Grameen and BRAC, along with all the main microfinance NGOs in Bangladesh, had developed highly centralized control and service delivery structures.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Akhter Hameed Khan, Director's Speech in First Annual Report, Comilla, 1960.
- ^ The Works of Akhter Hameed Khan. Volume I-III. Compiled by the Bandladesh Academy for Rural Development, Kothbari, Comilla. (1983)
- ^ Arthur F Raper, Rural Development in Action: The Comprehensive Experiment at Comilla, East Pakistan, Cornell University Press: Ithaca (1970)
- ^ Akhter Hameed Khan, Works of Akhter Hameed Khan, Vol. III, Comilla, 1984;
- ^ http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0309.htm at BANGLAPEDIA webpage
- ^ MA Quddus (ed.) Rural Development in Bangladesh, Comilla, 1993
- ^ The Works of Akhter Hameed Khan. Volume II, op. cit., pp. 135-6 (1983)
- ^ Aditee Nag Chowdhury, Let Grassroots Speak: People’s Participation Self-Help Groups and NGO’s in Bangladesh, University Press Ltd., Dhaka (1989)
- ^ Khandker, Shahidur R., Fighting Poverty with Microcredit: Experience in Bangladesh, Bangladesh Edition, The University Press Ltd., Dhaka (1999), pp. 17-18
