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Introduction
The Danish integrated rural development project in the southern Bangladeshi district of Noakhali, the Noakhali Integrated Rural Development Project (NIRDP), ran for fourteen years from 1978 to 1992. It was one of the largest single development projects in the history of the Danish aid agency, DANIDA, in terms of duration, total cost and the number of advisors in the field. Altogether close to DKK 400 million (approximately USD 65 million in 1992) was spent on an area with a population of 900,000 people in the first project phase which ran from 1978 to 1984. In the extended project area of the second phase in the period from 1984 to 1992, the project covered 4.5 million people. Over the course of the project, more than sixty long-term advisors, mostly Danish, were stationed at the project, normally for a period of two to three years; at its peak the Bangladeshi staff numbered close to 1,000.
The project was not only important because of its sheer size. It also played a key role in DANIDA's public relations efforts and in the overall Danish development assistance strategy. Informally, the NIRDP was dubbed DANIDA's 'flagship'. It was intended to mark a move away from the 'trickle-down' approach to development characteristic of the 1960s and early 1970s by embracing the basic-needs strategy with its focus on improving the life of the individual. Women and the poorer part of the population were to be targeted specifically through an 'integrated' effort which focused on several sectors of society at a local level, including health care, education, farming, credit and infrastructure. The project was to be a showcase for the Danish public which would highlight the successes achieved by Danish development assistance in the field - as well as the challenges it faced. To this end, educational and public relations materials about the project were produced, and several teams of Danish journalists were sent on paid guided tours to the project area.
Despite the grand schemes and the large budget, the project quickly developed into something of an embarrassment for DANIDA. Many components of the project experienced major problems and most of them were delayed. Co-operation with the understaffed local administration proved difficult and was worsened...