Development interventions, specifically rural financial services, seek to bring positive changes in traditional rural agrarian contexts. However, short‐sighted interventions can cause long‐term societal, environmental, and economic challenges. Drawing insights from long‐term ethnographic research on the social and economic implications of rural financial services in rural Bangladesh, this study cautions that sometimes development interventions by local non‐government organizations (NGOs) contribute to the creation of long‐term debt and dependency cycles on NGO services among their beneficiaries. While creating dependency or a debt trap is not usually the intentions of NGO services, mechanisms can strengthen the bonds between the NGOs and their beneficiaries who enter a complex relationship. This study argues that a lack of any locally feasible exit plans or sustainability roadmaps can contribute to strong bonds between NGOs and recipients, akin to world system models of dependency, rather than empowerment.
Ahmed et al. (Fri,) studied this question.