'Cut in funding to NGOs, CSOs to hurt Bangladesh's LDC graduation'

The smooth and sustainable graduation of Bangladesh from the least developed country (LDC) category may get affected because of a reduction in fund disbursement to the civil society organisations (CSOs) by the government and international development partners, analysts said today.

The CSOs and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have good contribution for the development of the economy as those bodies provide fundings to different important issues like women empowerment and development of small enterprises, they said.

They spoke at a programme where the findings of a study titled 'Role of CSOs and NGOs in LDC Graduation of Bangladesh: opportunities and challenges' by the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh were shared.

The study showed the disbursement of official development assistance (ODA) to the Bangladeshi CSOs declined by 11.3 per cent between 2015-2020.

During this period the disbursement of ODA to the CSOs in developing countries increased by 16.06 per cent but in the LDC fell marginally at 0.98 per cent because of overall decline in funding for the CSOs by the IDPs, the study said.

Debapriya Bhattacharya, convenor of the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, shared the findings of the study at the programme held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.