The economic growth and development of a country should be such that respect people's lives and livelihoods, said visiting chief executive of ActionAid International Adriano Campolina in a talk with this newspaperyesterday.

"Growth is important but people are important as well," said Adriano referring to a decade-long process of lifting 30 million people from below the poverty line in Brazil.

“We should have development, which is inclusive in nature - fully taking the needs of the people into account,” he mentioned, adding, "You can have development respecting the people's rights."

It is not that investment and economic growth is opposed. The issue is how you can have a people-centred growth and how you can make sure that development starts with understanding the people's needs, he said.

Adriano, who arrived on a week-long visit to Bangladesh, travelled to Lalua and Nilganj

of Kalapara upazila in Barisal, Tala of Satkhira and Keshobpur of Jessore and the Kalyanpur slum (Pora Bosti) to see the marginalised people's struggle for life and livelihood.

In those areas, ActionAid Bangladesh conducts various programmes for poverty alleviation, women leadership, and local community's rights to water, livelihood and dignity.

In the case of any new development initiative, due impact assessment should be carried out before entering an agreement, he said.

Currently lots of evictions are taking place to accommodate a seaport, a naval base and a power plant in Kalapara of Patuakhali, displacing local farmers and fisher folks who do not think these development schemes would fetch them employment, mentioned the ActionAid top official.

He added that the kind of development taking place in Bangladesh is not inclusive. It gives priority to building big housing projects, new ports and power plants without respecting the people’s rights. Farmers in Tala upazila used to have two or three harvests a year. But they started having one because of waterlogging due to a “wrong intervention". They lost livelihoods and they also might be evicted, as the land they used to farm is required for making a way for the power plant, said Adriano.

Evicting the Kalyanpur slum dwellers is a direct violation of the people's right to livelihoods and social networks they have built over decades.

Big challenges of these communities are lying ahead, including coping with climate change impacts, inequality and discrimination.

ActionAid with its deep-rooted experiences of working with communities in 47 countries can side with the people who are poor and excluded, Adriano said.