Govt guarantor of social justice: Gowher Rizvi
Prime minister's international affairs advisor Gowher Rizvi on Wednesday said the government is the guarantor of social justice and governance is an indispensable element to ensure the equitable share of people's access and opportunity, reports UNB.
While addressing a function as the chief guest, he also underlined that the National Governance Assessment Framework (NGAF) should reflect national aspirations and aim to improve citizens' quality of life.
The Governance Innovation Unit of the Prime Minister's Office and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with Centre on Budget and Policy, University of Dhaka organised the Dhaka divisional consultation on National Governance Assessment Framework (NGAF) at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC).
The divisional consultations were organised in each division and one additional in Rangamati to collect qualitative and quantitative data on governance and explore possible solutions at the divisional level.
Dhaka Division consultation was part of the series consultation.
Resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh Sudipto Mukerjee said NGAF is a nationally owned, participatory framework built on an "all-of-society" approach which is integrated within a larger, cohesive process of monitoring development progress in Bangladesh.
He stressed on UNDP's strong commitment to continue its support to the government in developing the tool like NGAF to capture priority areas for policy action, gather citizen's aspirations, and help the policymakers design more comprehensive policy agendas.
Principal secretary to prime minister Ahmad Kaikaus said Bangladesh is unique in many ways both historically and culturally.
"Thus, the state of governance in Bangladesh should be assessed with reference to country context. Any imposed framework might not be adequate to capture the actual situation of Bangladesh."
He said the NGAF is a home-grown framework developed by local experts while maintaining global comparability which can provide useful information for the government to work on the betterment of peoples' lives of this country.
The event was also attended by, professor Kazi Maruful Islam and professor M Abu Eusuf of University of Dhaka, Radwan Mujib Siddiq, national consultant and Ashekur Rahman, assistant resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh.
Mohammad Abdul Latif, director general of the GIU, closed the event by congratulating all participants for their contribution in the group work and expressed gratitude for completing the questionnaires.
The NGAF is a country-contextualized governance assessment apparatus that aims to create an inclusive and peaceful society with greater access to justice for all and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
The NGAF will help to track the government's progress in the trajectory of a Five-Year Plan and support the SDG monitoring and reporting responsibilities.
The framework, supported by UNDP and relevant institutions, has five thematic areas, eighteen sub-themes, and sixty-four context-relevant indicators for Bangladesh.