Who cares? The personal and professional problems of NGO fieldworkers in Bangladesh

Development management as reflective practice

“…Yet their underlying concern with relationships and the fact that 58 per cent were explicitly concerned with learning/knowledge suggest such a process of moving forward through embedding their evident individual capability for reflective thinking into their everyday practice with others; or as Weick (1995, p 39) puts it, recognising that 13 See also Ahmad (2002) who highlights the personal problems of job insecurity, financial hardships, accommodation difficulties, family relationships and professional problems in external relationships of those he calls 'front-line southern fieldworkers' based on his study of four rural NGOs in Bangladesh. Bergman (2003) offers insights into another type of front-line fieldworker, that is those involved with humanitarian aid for disasters, emergencies, conflict-affected zones and peace keeping.…”

Loan officers and loan ‘delinquency’ in Microfinance: A Zambian case

“…Ito (2003) observed that field workers with diverse roles faced the rival demands between increasing loan disbursement and repayment as compared with borrowers" requirements to be sensitive to their own specific circumstances and requirements. Ahmad (2000Ahmad ( , 2002 also argued that the microfinance literature has evaluated the activities of Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) without sufficient reference to s:\staff\repositories\fulltext\business school\4288\journal article-acforum.doc 6 the views of those who actually work with clients. Like Goetz (2001) Ahmad (2000 also found field workers to be implementers of policies but were nevertheless organisationally dis-empowered.…”

“…A number of issues and problems concerned with the work loan officers actually do at the most critical interface have arguably not been sufficiently addressed before, which are potentially critical for frontier territory like Zambia, where microfinance still needs to progress from simply promising beginnings. Loan officers are the major link between microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their poor clients and are central for service delivery (Ahmad, 2002;Goetz, 2001). Because they mediate transactions between MFIs and borrowers, loan officers are thought to implement policies of MFIs in ways that imply in-depth understanding of clients and empathy for successful lending (Ahmad, 2002;Chua, 1998;Goetz, 2001;Holcombe, 1995;Jain and Moore, 2003;Pawlak, 2002).…”

“…Loan officers are the major link between microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their poor clients and are central for service delivery (Ahmad, 2002;Goetz, 2001). Because they mediate transactions between MFIs and borrowers, loan officers are thought to implement policies of MFIs in ways that imply in-depth understanding of clients and empathy for successful lending (Ahmad, 2002;Chua, 1998;Goetz, 2001;Holcombe, 1995;Jain and Moore, 2003;Pawlak, 2002). In short, it is argued that "the heart of MFI lies with its fieldworkers" (Chua, 1998), yet that argument has not really been fully examined.…”

Educational Development of NGO Beneficiaries in Bangladesh: A Disjunction between Programmes and Implementation

“…Dhakal and Newaz (2009), in their cross national study on Bangladesh and Nepal, found inappropriate and insufficient human capital development programme in the line with Brown and Bessant's (2003) study wherein supportive, flexible, and multi-skilled workforce is sought. Otherwise, the NGOs cannot retain their critical staff for imparting training and knowledge to their beneficiaries (Ahmad, 2002;Ramlall, 2004). Consequently, lead to the shortage of qualified staff, inadequate qualified female fieldworkers needed in the suburban and rural areas will remain to continue (Huda et al, 2007), which will, in turn, bring their objective to achieve educational development of their beneficiaries into question.…”