Dhaka 18 Jan, 2005
Press Release
Right to Information Fundamental to Transparency and Accountability
Speakers at a conference Tuesday underlined the need for a political will to carry out much needed reforms in key areas, such as politics, administration and institutions, to ensure better governance, improved law and order and increased participation of people in the development process.
The conference on “Human Rights and Governance: Local and Global Perspectives,” organised by Manusher Jonno and its partners identified the structural weaknesses in the country, leading to bad governance and inequity, calling for efforts by the government, opposition parties and the civil society to improve the situation.
The concluding day of the three-day conference began with a plenary session on “Governance: Local and Global Perspectives,” which was followed by five parallel sessions on different aspects of governance.
The plenary session chaired by Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, Managing Director of the Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation (PKSF), was addressed by Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Dr Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman of the Public Administration Department of Dhaka University and Monzoor Hasan, Deputy Executive Director of BRAC.
Venkatesh Nayak described the Indian experience of governance and said corruption, opacity and lack of accountability are the factors limiting good governance in Bangladesh as in others South Asian countries. The situation would improve if the right to information is ensured, he added.
Explaining, he said lack of transparency and accountability is leading to non-cooperation by the government departments and deprivation of people from getting services from the state agencies.
The right to information would increase transparency and accountability of the state agencies leading to better governance, he said, adding the official secrecy act should also be modernised to ensure increased access to information.
Monzoor Hasan pointed to some conflicting scenarios in Bangladesh and said there are positive human development indicators against the backdrop of bad governance situation, while there are also extreme hardcore poor against the backdrop of consistent average economic growth of around five per cent.
He said all these conflicting scenarios are the puzzles that need to be addressed through undertaking political and structural reforms.
Strengthening the voices of the people at all levels, fostering their participation in development process, ensuring gender equality and strengthening local government institutions could significantly improve the situation, he observed.
Hasan also said the state policies, laws and regulations are being unduly influenced by a section of small group in the power structure for their own interest. The situation would worsen unless steps are taken to stop this trend right now, he added.
Dr Salahuddin referred to different features of governance in Bangladesh and said the parliament, although elected by a free and fair election, is still far from being vibrant, effective and participatory.
He said attendance of the MPs at the parliamentary sessions has been alarmingly low and in many occasions the sessions had to be delayed due to lack of a quorum.
Except the cursory discussions on budget, major policies and critical development issues had never been discussed in the parliament, he said, giving example such as the five-year plan, annual development programme and population policy that had never been discussed in the parliament.
Salahuddin said the overall image of the parliament is poor because of the non-parliamentary attitude and deliberation of a section of the members in the parliament.
He said reform of institutions and its implications for governance have become the urgent priority if the policy reform for pro-poor growth is to be maintained.
He suggested delegation of selected responsibilities and functions to the local government institutions, designing of an institutional structure for cooperation with NGOs, reorientation of the bureaucracy, involvement of the civil society in governance process, activation of the parliament and public briefing of government interventions at the local levels to improve governance.
The plenary session was followed by parallel sessions on “Civil Society Activism Media and Role of State for Good Governance,” “Governance of NGOs and Building Capacities of the Poor,” “Institutional Reform and Poverty Reduction,” “Role of International Institutions to Promote Good Governance: Country Perspective” and “Corporate Governance: Social Accountability.” Experts on concerned issues participated in discussions in the sessions.
Shaheen Anam
Team Leader, Manusher Jonno
(0173-010009)
