The country must put concerted efforts to improve efficiency of government agencies to make the best use of external assistance, speakers observed at a dialogue yesterday.

On the debate whether Bangladesh should accept foreign aid or not, they said the country still cannot ignore the aid but what the government should do is to focus on priority areas and improve quality of project implementation.

Chairing the dialogue, former finance minister M Syeduzzaman gave an historical overview of flow of foreign aid in Bangladesh. Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organised the dialogue titled "Utilisation of Aid in Bangladesh: Concerns and Challenges" at CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka.

Syeduzzaman said the government needs to increase the ownership of projects bringing down conditionalities in foreign funded projects.

Speaking as chief guest, Mushfiqur Rahman, chairman of parliamentary standing committee on finance and planning ministry, said disbursement of foreign aid depends on institutional management and capacity.

"There are more efforts for centralisation than decentralisation in the country. Permission from the ministry is needed for every step," he said .

He said the government bureaucrats must have adequate negotiation capacity to deal with donors trying to impose conditionalities. "Our ownership in foreign-funded projects is at stake. Previously conditionalities were project specific and now it is beyond economic purview," he said mentioning that donors take advantage of inadequate home-grown reforms.

Chief Whip of Opposition in parliament Abdus Shahid said, "We are now in such a position that we cannot ignore aid. Stopping the debate, we must efficiently utilise the external assistance to use it as a tool to reach the millennium development goals."

Finance Secretary Zakir Ahmed Khan said the government is taking initiatives to increase coordination with different donor agencies. Since each donor may have its focus and interest in specific areas, the government must coordinate to check overlapping of projects, he said.

"The situation of aid disbursement and project implementation is improving. The government is trying to harmonise the donor projects as well as increase country ownership agenda in those projects," he said.

Presenting a paper, Masihur Rahman, former secretary of economic relations division, said the government mechanism must speed up the process of receiving and completing implementation of foreign aided projects.

QS Alam, a former secretary, said for lack of coordination and harmonisation, the country saw lots of projects overlapped and also some areas overlooked in donor projects.

Abdur Razzak MP said the projects often overlap as the country has no guidelines in receiving foreign aid. "The government should have priority areas for foreign aid. The government should take up priority projects and invite donors just to provide fund," he added.