DHAKA: The World Bank, in launching its World Development Report (WDR) 2004, has recommended that the government contract out key services to private contractors in the form of NGOs to keep policymakers distinct from service providers.

Stating that public “money fails to reach frontline service providers” in countries like Bangladesh, the WDR 2004 said that the rate of absenteeism among doctors in primary healthcare centres in Bangladesh is as high as 74 per cent.

Launching the WDR here on Sunday, the World Bank’s economists observed that the nature of service delivery is highly political and in Bangladesh the involvement of vested quarters and a lack of accountability of the service providers deprives the poor of due services of healthcare and of other facilities despite huge public spending.

The WDR titled “Making Services Work for Poor People” cited the success of contracting out healthcare services to NGOs in Cambodia.

The economists admitted that a suggestion without country-specific knowledge would be a mistake.

It added that neither growth nor increasing public spending is enough to provide the poor with services in terms of their access to it with quality and quantity.

In spite of “frequent problems with public services, it would be wrong to conclude that government should give up and leave everything to the private sector,” the report said.

“If individuals are left to their own devices, they will not provide levels of education and health that they collectively want. No country has achieved significant improvement in child mortality and primary education without government involvement.”

“It has come from within and the sources of changes are local.. should be local,” the Bank’s economist Dr Junaid Kamal Ahmad told reporters at the launching ceremony, referring to the achievements Bangladesh has had.

“Too often, services fail poor people. Services work when they include all the people, when girls are encouraged to go to school, when pupils and parents participate in the schooling process, when communities take charge of their own sanitation,” World Bank President James D Wolfensohn said in his message on the occasion.

The development report lauded Bangladesh for attaining significant gender parity in lower secondary schools by giving grants to students that ensured greater enrolment — pushing it from 12 per cent to 80 per cent in recent times.