Integrated Governance: A Pre-Requisite for Sustainable Market-Oriented Development in Bangladesh

Abstract

Using agriculture input sector as an exemplar, this article assesses Bangladesh's efforts towards a market-oriented development approach. It examines the changing role of the state following the market-based reforms undertaken in this sector and assesses whether the outcomes of the reforms are sustainable. Findings reveal that, although the current move towards a market-oriented approach has led to a shift away from a state-dominated hierarchical structure, it has not been associated with adequate changes in institutional arrangements, safeguards, and regulation. As a result, despite notable achievements of the reforms, the sustainability of these successes is in question. To facilitate participatory, accountable, and sustainable, market-oriented development, the paper proposes an integrated governance model linking state, business, and civil society.

Keywords:

• integrated governance
• marked-based reforms
• sustainable development

Notes

¹The terms networked and integrated governance are used interchangeably in this article.

²The exploratory study had both quantitative and qualitative components investigating the perception of the key stakeholders on the reform policies. A total of 154 surveys were conducted with public officials, private traders dealing with agricultural inputs and farmers. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with donor agencies and senior bureaucrats involved with reform policies. The sample for public officials and private traders was selected using a stratified random sampling approach. Public officials were selected randomly from three main agricultural institutes among those who were holding mid-level positions and had the experience of working in both the state dominated and privatized agricultural input system. In the case of private traders a total of 16 enterprises/firms dealing in agricultural inputs were selected randomly from the list of input traders obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Bangladesh. The respondents were selected randomly from these sixteen enterprises. A total of fifty-four public officials and 43 private traders were surveyed. Farmers were selected using a clustered sampling approach from the Savar Upazilla of Dhaka district. A total of 57 farmers were surveyed.