The Governance Innovation Unit (GIU) of the Prime Minister’s Office and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly organized a High-level consultation on the progress of National Governance Assessment Framework (NGAF) at Hotel Pan Pacific Sonargaon today 14 December, 2017
The high level government officials, representation included Dr. Gowher Rizvi, Honorable Adviser to the Prime Minister, Dr. Kamal Ahmed Naser Chowdhury, Principal Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office; Md. Abdul Halim, Director General of GIU; Mr. Sudipto Mukherjee, Country Director, UNDP Bangladesh and different ministries. National Governance Assessment Framework (NGAF) for Bangladesh. Launched in June 2015, representatives from the Cabinet Division, GIU and the General Economics Division (GED), as well as the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Dhaka University (Departments of Public Administration and Development Studies), and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) contributed in developing the framework.
Today’s high-level consultation was focused on recent pilot testing of the framework at the field level. This framework is mandated to track long term progress in improving the quality of national governance in Bangladesh and will be an important tool for periodic reporting to senior policy makers, development partners and citizens. Through an indigenous process, a set of five thematic areas and context-relevant indicators has been developed for Bangladesh, focusing on: 1) institutional effectiveness and capacity; 2) rule of law; 3) participation; 4) equity and inclusion; 5) transparency and accountability.
Mr. Radwan Mujib Siddiq, National Consultant, UNDP Bangladesh presented the keynote paper on “Developing a National Governance Assessment Framework for Bangladesh: Overview and Progress” and a detailed presentation highlighting the research tools and major findings was presented by Professor Dr. Kazi Maruful Islam on behalf of the Working Group members.
In general, the participants of the consultation emphasized the importance of localizing the governance agenda and customizing the governance indicators for Bangladesh. Md. Abdul Halim, Director General of GIU reaffirmed the commitment of the Government to take forward the journey of NGAF towards its logical conclusion.
Sudipto Mukerjee, Country Director of UNDP Bangladesh stressed on UNDP’s commitment to stay the course and support this process over the long term as the framework will assist to priorities and gather citizen’s aspirations as well as support the policy makers to design policy agendas.
Dr. Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury, Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office underlined the importance of governance framework in identifying and prioritizing national policy agenda.
Dr. Gowher Rizvi, Honorable Adviser to the Prime Minister underlined that now government’s priority is to attain Agenda 2030 and to achieve this measurable indicator is very critical. NGAF framework will be very useful in critically measuring the governance issues in an inclusive manner. He urged the government officials present to engage vigorously in implementation of the NGAF.”
While clearly endorsing the Framework presented, government officials emphasized the importance of having a set of well-defined and clearly articulated indicators and governance framework. This would lead to a robust snapshot of the state of governance in Bangladesh at a given point in time, rather than a comprehensive analysis of all possible issues and dimensions of governance, clearly identifying challenges and opportunities for all actors to work together to improve the quality of governance in Bangladesh.
