The Economic Relations Division on Sunday launched an online-based foreign loans and grants information management system to track foreign aid flows to the country for ensuring transparency and accountability in foreign fund management and coordination.
Finance minister AMA Muhith inaugurated the home-grown system called Aid Information Management System at ERD conference room in the capital.
AIMS will deal with all information related to aid flow in the country including commitments, disbursements, expenditures and outcomes of the projects and that will be available at a web portal: www.aims.erd.gov.bd.
The system will also help enhance effectiveness in uses of foreign loans and grants, ERD officials said.
The system will also record and process the foreign loans and grants flow to sectors, areas and geographic locations helping the government determine in which sectors, areas and geographic locations it need more loans and grants so that it can negotiate with the development partners for loans and grants in line with the country’s priorities.
Muhith said Bangladesh dependence on foreign resources had been gradually reducing which was good news for the country.
‘But we will have to ensure maximum use of foreign assistance along
with increasing the both foreign and domestic investment for achieving 9 per cent GDP growth to become a middle-income country by 2021,’ he said.
Just after the independence of the country, the share of foreign assistance was 12 per cent of GDP which is now only 1.8 per cent, Muhith said.
Currently, ERD maintains the data manually which fails to provide full picture of aid inflows as it collects data of foreign loans and grant flows to the country through the ERD though donors also give grants to NGOs through NGO Affairs Bureau.
The ERD officials said foreign grants to non-government organisations would also come under ERD monitoring under the system.
All stakeholders including mass people will get access to the information regarding loans and grants inflow and their uses, they said adding that the development partners would update their loans and grants commitments and disbursements to the government, civil society organisations and NGOs regularly.
The government faces problems in incorporating foreign fund flow into the national budget and taking projects with foreign loans and grants in line with its priorities due to lack of comprehensive and processed data, the officials said.
In the most cases, donors give loans and grants in projects on their own choices instead of the government’s priorities, they said.
Primarily, 35 international lenders and donors who give Official Development Assistance and grants to Bangladesh will upload information. Other organisations that provide Bangladeshi NGOs with grants will not be covered now under the system, the officials said.
Economic adviser to the prime minister Mashiur Rahman, state minister for finance MA Mannan, ERD secretary Mohammad Mejbahudddin, USAID mission director Janina Jaruzelski, among others, spoke at the programme.
-With New Age input
