Bangladesh - Belgium

Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study
1 Introduction
In 2006 a core group of DAC partners (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden,
Switzerland and the United Kingdom) responded to the increasing donor emphasis on good
governance by agreeing to collaborate on a joint evaluation of development aid for strengthening
citizens’ voice and accountability (CVA). The DAC Evaluation Core Group (ECG) is applying an
evaluation framework developed and piloted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to a
series of country case studies across a range of country types.
The objective of the evaluation is to contribute to:
• An improved understanding of CVA among development partners by mapping and
documenting their approaches and strategies for enhancing CVA in a variety of country
contexts and to learn lessons on which approaches have worked best, where and why.
• An assessment of the effects of a range of donor CVA interventions on governance and on
aid effectiveness and whether these effects are sustainable.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) invited proposals for the Citizens’
Voice and Accountability Bangladesh Country Case Study (BCCS). Oxford Policy Management
(OPM) was selected for this evaluation.
This report presents the findings of the BCCS. The objectives of the BCCS are to:
• assess the selected interventions against their intended objectives and on the basis of that
draw conclusions on what works, and what does not in relation to intervention programme
theories
• assess the relevance of the interventions for strengthening CVA in Bangladesh
• provide an overall assessment/analysis of the donors’ role, success and failures in
supporting CVA in Bangladesh.
As well as standing on its own, the BCCS will inform a synthesis report to be published in 2008
which will analyse the lessons learned from all the case studies and make recommendations to
donors to consider and implement.
This report is structured as follows. Following this introduction, section 2 describes the
methodology (with an expanded discussion in Annex B), section 3 provides an overview of the
country context in which CVA interventions operate (with a much more detailed analysis of country
context in Annex C). Section 4 presents the research team’s findings from the examination of the
eleven case studies (with detailed case study sheets presented in Annex D) and Section 5
presents lessons learned. Section 6 provides a set of recommendations to be considered for
future CVA support.
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