Bangladesh - Belgium

Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study
• The Caretaker Government is emphasizing the establishment and/or operationalisation of
guardianship institutions (which support horizontal accountability e.g. Anti Corruption
Commission, separation of the judiciary 57 , Electoral Commission etc), which are enshrined in
the Constitution but were not enacted.
Challenges:
• The media, which in recent years has become more independent and neutral, has been
encouraged to provide extensive coverage of the drive to bring corrupt officials to justice but
there is evidence of interference and directives not to publish anti-government material. Private
TV companies have been directed to suspend all their programming of current events and
political debate
• Civil society meetings, workshops and other forms of association are subject to police approval
and censorship
• There are allegations of serious incidents of human rights abuses by the security forces
• The Caretaker Government is seen as promoting strongly secular interests to the exclusion of
Islamist ones.
There is much speculation regarding the future. It is feared that despite the efforts to prepare for
elections at the end of 2008 including the preparation of a new voters list and ID cards and
instigation of new qualifying regulations for candidates, the two main parties will boycott the
election. The two year transition period is too short for the establishment of and mobilization of
support for alternative political parties. Other scenarios suggest the possibility of an
institutionalised and expanded version of the current Caretaker Government arrangement of
advisors or further infiltration by the military.
In principle, the Caretaker Government claims to support not only enhancing accountability (where
the main opportunities appear to currently lie) but also voice. It has publicly endorsed the Poverty
Reduction Strategy (PRS) which remains the key document for alignment of development aid.
Under the title ‘Unlocking the Potential; National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction,2005-
7’, the document spells out a commitment to poverty reduction and the Millennium Development
Goals. Along with growth and human development, governance is one of the three key elements of
the policy triangle used in the PRS to determine priorities. The consultations leading up to
development of the PRS gave high priority to improving governance and suggested a
concentration on the local governance agenda, which is described in the PRS as ‘central to the
critical issues of decentralized service-delivery, grass-root accountability and the newer focus on
regeneration of local economies through relevant partnerships amongst local government bodies,
CBOs, NGOs, private sector and central government agencies.’ (1.13). Local governance is thus
one of the eight strategic agenda (1.15) Promoting ‘good governance by ensuring transparency,
accountability and rule of law’ is also one of the four supporting strategies. The PRS identifies the
“needs” of the poor regarding governance as:’ i) better service-delivery particularly in the areas of
health and education, ii) reduction of leakage in targeted programmes, iii) access to justice,
iv)regulatory support to the informal and un-organised sectors of the economy where a majority of
the poor pursue their livelihoods, and, v) reduction of income erosion threats to the poor due to
various forms of insecurity and improper application of power’ (4.29). It highlights a need for
reformulating the decentralisation agenda to one of promoting local governance as a ‘political and
institutional process which can contribute to the required scaling up of the rate of poverty reduction
57 Historically achieved on November 1 st , 2007)
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