As per the Local Government Act 2009 , committees act as an important apparatus safeguarding transparency and accountability of the Union Parishad. Regrettably, Union Parishad committees are not perceived and envisioned well by those shouldering the responsibility to take this committee forward. Mohammad Tarikul Islam evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the committee system of local government in Bangladesh

Islam, Mohammad Tarikul

LSE Research Online

November 7, 2017Understanding the Effectiveness of Union ParishadStanding Committee: A Perspective on Bangladeshblogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2017/11/07/understanding-the-effectiveness-of-union-parishad-standing-committee-a-perspective-on-bangladesh/As per the Local Government Act 2009 , committees act as an importantapparatus safeguarding transparency and accountability of the UnionParishad. Regrettably, Union Parishad committees are not perceived andenvisioned well by those shouldering the responsibility to take thiscommittee forward. Mohammad Tarikul Islam evaluates the strengths andweaknesses of the committee system of local government in Bangladesh.Union Parishad (UP) is the lowest tier local of government institution which providesservices to citizens at their doorstep. It is the only institution to ensure good governance,development planning, implementation, transparency, and accountability for rural areas inBangladesh. The latest Local Government (UP) Act 2009  has created an opportunity toensure greater participation of the people in the process of development planning andimplementation. According to the UP Act, 2009, there is a provision of 13 StandingCommittees (SCs) in the UP to support the Parishad in ensuring transparency,accountability, and people’s participation in planning and implementing for ensuring bettergovernance and service.As per the UP act, each UP is supposed to form at least 13 standing committees ondifferent issues like education, health, family planning, social welfare and disastermanagement, and agriculture, fisheries and livestock. The committees, comprising electedrepresentatives from the Parishads, civil society members, socially respected persons andwomen representatives of that locality, are entitled to assist the UP for ensuring betterservices and resolving different problems. For instance, committees help drive decisionand provide an important means of oversight on the function of governing bodies.The standing committees are central components of UPs – the 4,500 UPs across thecountry cannot be strong unless the committees are strengthened. However, thesecommittees are not active in about 90% of the Parishads because the elected chairmenand other members are not properly aware and interested about its functions andjurisdictions. The reasons behind the sluggish performance of Standing Committees maybe attributed to a number of factors: lack of initiatives of UP members; lack of pressurefrom the common people; lack of political pressure; lack of skills required for planning andimplementing development programmes at the local level; no specific terms of referencesof Standing Committees; unwillingness on the part of UP Chairman to delegate authorityand even non-existence of Standing Committees , or existence only on paper.As stated by the constitution of Bangladesh, the government should embolden the localgovernment institutions, not control them. Undesirably, local government bodies(particularly UP) could not run with the spirit of self-governance because of theunwarranted meddling of the local administration. The essence of decentralised local1/3government in Bangladesh is little encouraging owing to domination by and completedependence on central/national government; limited or lack of participation of themarginalised section in the decentralised bodies; and absence of political commitment.Moreover, the local government acts delegate Member of the Parliament (MP) with theresponsibility to oversee the advancement of the local government bodies as Adviser. UPchairman and members are supposed to follow and implement the advice of the MP.Based on understandings of different action researches and hands-on consequence ofimplementation of the decentralisation policy of Bangladesh government, it can be debatedthat keeping the provision of committees at all levels of governance has become anintegral part of law making process since committees these days are well-thought-out asan important mechanism of ensuring transparency and accountability of the UP. Of course,one may surprise, to what extent the system of committee will be able to guaranteetransparency and accountability of the activities of the UP when the committees are to beconstituted with the spirit of volunteering having no financial and executive authority on thetop. Allowing some margins for error, I believe that the exercise of committees in UP willensure coordination of activities of different departments that would certainly help theprocess of service delivery to the poorest segment for whom ‘access to public service’ ischallenging to some extent.Workshop and meeting in a village. Photo credit: Afifa Afrin CC BY-SA 3.0Aiding local government from the external sources is not a new phenomenon inBangladesh. They have been receiving grants from the very beginning of the emergency ofBangladesh as an independent nation, but over the years, the amount of aid in differentforms has increased particularly after the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy in the90’s. UN bodies and like-minded donor agencies are found to be effective towardssupplementing the efforts of the government in strengthening the committee system of UP.The underlying benefits of holding committees depend heavily on the process followed, thescope for speaking freely without fear, sharing information and the intensity of acceptanceof their recommendations by the UP in its monthly meeting as reflected in the prevailing2/3legislations. It provides scope to play an overseeing role of the committees on thefunctioning of the UP. As part of the effort to commendably galvanise committees to fosterlocal development for the welfare of the rural dwellers, it has been convenient to discoverhow the process currently followed for conducting committee meetings, and the outputs ofthese meetings produce the impacts. Since committees run under the statuses of lessformal rules, committee members are in a good position to discuss issues in anunceremonious and pleasant manner and to develop relationships with committeecolleagues who represent different interests of the community. That does remain as spiritin creating a reciprocal milieu in which compromises on small matters and technicalimprovements in overall functioning can be agreed upon.Regrettably, the issue of committees has not been perceived by different actors who areengaged in the process of functioning of the committees. Ignorance and reluctance havebeen appeared as the impediment for the effectiveness of committee and the lowparticipation of the members in the committee meeting signposts that fruitful discussionsare not held in the committee meetings. This owes to lack of internalisation of theimportance of the committees by different actors accompanying the process ofcommittees. Consequently, effective functioning of committee may offer a number ofbenefits for effective functioning of UP. First, committees allow informal discussion amongmembers that is prerequisite for development of relationships among members belongingto different political beliefs. Meetings of committee act as the forum for arriving atcooperation and settlement. Endurance, steadiness and sequential knowledge are to beguaranteed by the committee members. To uphold the spirit of transparency andaccountability of the UP, there is no alternative other than reinforcing the committee.This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog,nor of the London School of Economics. Please read ourcomments policy before posting.About the AuthorMohammad Tarikul Islam is the Assistant Professor to the Department ofGovernment and Politics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. Hepreviously worked at the United Nations for seven years on projects relatingto local governance, democracy, disaster management, the environment andclimate change. Mr. Islam is currently engaged with the Centre for ClimateChange Communication, George Mason University, USA as AffiliateResearcher. He can be reached at t.islam@juniv.edu3/3

Understanding the effectiveness of Union Parishad standing committee: a perspective on Bangladesh

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Understanding the effectiveness of Union Parishad standing committee: a perspective on Bangladesh

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