FOOD FOR WORK

Purpose of project is to provide rural landless people employment in rural earthwork projects. Difficulties and recommendations of project were discussed during a Ministry of Relief (MOR) meeting attended by representatives of the Bangladesh Govt (BDG), CARE, USAID, and the World Food Program. Proj is presently progressing well despite past difficulties. Over a 30 day period, 30 million workdays of employment were created, employing approximately l million people. Workers constructed irrigatn canals, flood control embankmts, land reclamatn embankments, roads, water tanks, etc. Since the quality of projs submitted by BDG have been inadequate it was recommended that: l. MOR request new proj be started at once for next year & be reviewed by a technical committee; 2. CARE assist BGD to plan well-designed proj proposals, and 3. large scale maps be used in planning Food For Work (FFW) projs. Decisn making could be improved by allowing the District Selectn Committees the authority to approve projs for implementatn. The most detrimental problem -- wheat misappropriatn -- could be improved by more closely monitoring the rate & method of calculating final surveying figures. The usefulness of the District Steering Committee should be reemphasized in a letter of instructn. The small number of women employed in the proj (less than l%) should be increased through MOR efforts to encourage participatn of women & CARE giving a preferential rate to projs employing women workers. The Project Implementatn Office (PIO) performance should be improved by filling vacancies with technically qualfied people, providing better training, and increasing PIO responsibilities. Also, each local initiation should maintain the same final reports. The major constraint to proper implementation of FFW projects is a lack of motivation among officials to do a good job. Although reasons for poor performance are unknown, low morale may be due to slow travel reimbursemts, delayed carrying-costs, lack of measuring tools; and lack of the necessary forms for reporting project performance.