A. JOURNEY OF LOGIN BANGLADESH The 2016 is a unique year for LOGIN BCP. This is the first time that BCP Members contributed in organising all three LOGIN Learning events: CARE Bangladesh in Civic Engagement, Accountability and Open Governance; Aparajita (an alliance of four organizations working on women's political empowerment) and others in Women's Political Empowerment; and Sharique- Helvetas Swiss Interco-operation in Fiscal Transparency and Open Data to Strengthen Local Government Accountability. Because, BCP members are involved in making difference among targeted audience life by their activities which bears sharing and replication value in and abroad. A resource pool also engaged in three LOGIN Learning events. BCP (Bangladesh Country Platform) Member also participated in preparing LOGIN Communication Strategy in this year. They also actively participated in LOGIN Mid Term Review (MTR) through different meetings with consultant.

Though Bangladesh was host country for LOGIN Learning Event on Women's Political Empowerment and BCP was fully prepared to organize that event in Bangladesh but unpredictable terrorist attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh in July 2016 shattered that prepara-tion. As a result, Venue of that event shifted from Dhaka to Bangkok and we missed to project ourselves what we deserve. Not only that we also missed to host another Peer Learning Programme between Bangladesh and Cambodia on Disability Inclusive Local Government. It took few months to get back normal life in Bangladesh. By this time LOGIN BCP lost few months to organize local learning events. But good news is that later they managed to organize two local learning events. In this year, LOGIN BCP maintained close contact with Local Government Division through updating about LOGIN activities and ensuring participa-tion of that division in different LOGIN events. LOGIN Bangladesh also finalized membership criteria of BCP in participation of platform members.

LOGIN BCP has created space for regular interactions and learning sharing among members through formal and informal meetings. Two exclusive learning meetings were organized in this year: 1) Care Bangladesh on 'Information flow in UP and Citizen Budget

JOURNEY OF LOGIN BANGLADESH COUNTRY PLATFORM2016

Analysis' and 'Local Government Institution led Water Resource Management' & 2) DASCOH on 'Local Government Institution led Water Resource Management'.

In 2016, LOGIN BCP members Participated in all three LOGIN learning events. LOGIN BCP followed a transparent participant's selection process through involving its members. Stages of this process are: Formation of Selection Committee in a platform meeting, call for submission of application from aspirants, selection of participants through scrutinizing those applications by the committee and Country Facilitators shared that list with all members again.

At present LOGIN BCP has 21 institutional members comprising of Ministry of Local Government, National Institute of Local Governance, CSOs working on Local Government issues, Interna-tional Development Partners & Media Organization. Four organizations are observers; these are BRAC, Democracywatch, Khan Foundation and Max Foundation.

B. LEARNING JOURNEYIn 2016, BCP Participated in all three LOGIN learning events, and the participants shared their learning's with other platform members. Member organizations organized two learning sharing events for members of BCP. LOGIN BCP member organizations were involved in three events as co-organizers. BCP followed a selection process ensuring transparency and involving members. The Selection Committee selected members considering usefulness of gathering knowledge for himself/herself as well as him/her organization. In total 15 persons participated in the three workshops from Bangladesh in two categories: Participants and Resource Persons.

29 June-1 July, 2016|Colombo, Sri Lanka

A three member BCP Team participated in this workshop. This workshop highlighted concepts and approaches to political economy and power analysis, representation, transparency and accountability. It helped participants explore opportunities for working with new and informal civic and political actors. This workshop has guided participants on different approaches. It helped them map power (or progress of power) relations within their country context, and guided them on how to make best use of available resources to meet expected results.

26-28 July, 2016|Bangkok, Thailand

This workshop was scheduled to held in Bangladesh. But due to terrorist attack on 1 July 2016 the venue of this programme shifted from Dhaka to Bangkok. Thailand. A Five Member Team selected as participants in this workshop. But unfortunately two selected participants Mr. Morshed Alam from Khan Foundation and Mr. Pronoy Gosh from Steps Towards Development didn't participate

B.1 Participation in Learning Events

B.1.1 Workshop on Civic Engagement, Accountability and Open Governance

B.1.2 Workshop on Women's Political Empowerment

due to manage to get visa in due time. So a three member Team joined in this workshop instead of Five. Mr. Santanu Lahiru was the facilitator in this workshop. Mr. Ranjan Kamaker, Executive Director of Steps Towards Development Bangladesh, introduced the workshop topic. He explained how women's political empow-erment had emerged as a learning agenda within LOGIN. The 2nd and 3rd General Assemblies had discussed the state of elected women representatives in countries where LOGIN had its presence. Based on the interest generated towards this topic, in the 2nd General Assembly (December 2014), LOGIN members from Bangladesh; anchored by Aparajita (a coalition of organisa-tions including Steps Towards Development, PRIP Trust, Democ-racy Watch and Khan Foundation) along with the National

Institute of Local Government, Helvetas, WaterAid, the Center for Disability in Development and others; came forward to host a learning event in Bangladesh. Due to prevailing political conditions in the country, the workshop could not be organised in 2015. Over the years, women's political empow-erment continued to remain a challenge that many member countries faced as they moved towards strengthening local governance. The discourse on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) brought to the fore the full and effective participation of women; providing equal opportu-nities for women to take on leadership roles at all levels by reducing social, economic and political inequalities. Towards this end, strengthening the role of women and other marginalised groups in local governance was seen as vital. The topic again emerged as a learning priority in December 2016, and considerable

preparations were made to host a learning event in July 2016. However, owing to certain unfortunate developments in Bangla-desh, the workshop venue was shifted to Bangkok. This had implications on the overall event design and participation.

25-27 October, 2016|Manila, Philippines

A three member BCP Team participated and as well as three member Bangladesh resource Team also engaged themselves in this workshop.The workshop was the aim to enable participants to (i) share experiences on what is being done at the local level in the region on public financial management, and the efforts being made to make financial data transparent, (ii) through analysis of current practices, creating an understanding of the conditions that need to accompany and enable fiscal transparency at all levels of government and(iii) create opportunities for participants to link up with others working in the same field and grappling with similar challenges, so that they can network for problem solving in the future. Four case studies from India, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Mongolia with a focus on how the work being done connected with their own country contexts. Based on these deliberations, a set of necessary and enabling conditions for interventions to trigger change and good practices were identified.

B.1.3 Workshop on Fiscal Transparency and Open Data to Strengthen Local Government Accountability

Name of Event

Workshop Civic Engagement, Accountability and Open Governance

Workshop on Women's Political Empowerment

Workshop on Fiscal Transparency and Open Data to Strengthen Local Government Accountability

Date & Place

29 June - 1 July 2016

Colombo, Sri Lanka

26-28 July 2016

Bangkok, Thailand

25-27 October 2016

Manila, Philippines

Persons participated form BCP

Resource Persons (1)Mr. Anowarul Haq, CARE -BDParticipants (3)Dr. Golam Yahia, NILGMs. Rasheda Akhter, LG RepresentativeMr. Murad Bin Aziz, CARE-BDCo-Facilitator/Resource Persons (2)Mr. Santanu Lahiri, ConsultantMr. Ranjan Karmakar, StepsParticipants (3)Ms. Humaira Aziz, CARE-BDMs. Lakshmi Sarkar, LG RepresentativeMs. Taleya Rehman, DemocracywatchResource Persons (3)Ms. Lilia Tvedrun, HELVETASMr. Ranjit Kumar Chakraborty, ConsultantMr. Iqbal Abdullah Harun, GoBParticipants (3)Mr. Md Ershadul Haque, LGDMr. Nurul Islam, NILGMr. Salim Hossain Bhuiyan, HLP

Date

8 Sep2016

8, Sep2016

1 Dec2016

Number of Participants 14

14

15

Debriefing meetings

B.2 Learning events organized by BCP

B.2.1 Information flow in UP and Citizen Budget Analysis (Care-BD)

B.2.2 Local Government Institution led Water Resource Management in Barinda Area (DASCOH)

CARE Bangladesh organized a learning sharing meeting 21 November 2016 at conference room of their office on two issues: General Analysis of National Budget 2016-2017 & Assessment of Information Flow in Union Parishads. Ms. Aroma Dutta, Executive Director, Prip Trust presided that meeting. Mr. Murad-Bin-Aziz of CARE Bangladesh facilitated that meeting. A total of 14 BCP members participated in this meeting.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Eusuf, Director, Center on Budget and Policy and Chairman, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka presented General Analysis of National Budget 2016-2017. Objective of this presentation was to aware about process of National Budget Analysis for Citizens. This is called Citizen Budget.

Assessment of Information Flow in Union Parishads presented by Mr. Arshad Hossain Siddiqui, Ex CEO of Mass-Line Media. This study conducted by Mass-Line Media Centre (MMC) with support from CARE Bangladesh. This study tried to know information flow status of 15 Union Parishads of Nilphamaria and Gaibandha district. Later an open discussion was held on two presentations.

DASCOH shared their learning on Local Government Institution led Water Resource Management in Barinda Area on 1 December 2016 at Conference Room, NILG. A total of 15 Members partici-pated in this meeting. Mr. Md. Akramul Haque of DASCOH presented on Supporting Integrated Water Resource Manage-ment (IWRM) in the Barind Areas in this meeting. They are implementing this project in association of Swiss Red Cross under support from SDC.

Barinda area is classified as extreme water scarcity area in Bangladesh and as well as mostly no water available in dry season. This project implemented to solve this problem in a sustainable mechanism in association of Local Government Institutions (LGIs). Coverage of IWRM has been working in 35 Union Parishads and 4 Municipalities of Rajshahi and Chapainabganj district. Later an interactive discussion was held.

C. REGULAR LEARNING, SHARING

D. COORDINATION (GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, CSOS, NGOS, CIVIL SOCIETY, DONOR AGENCIES)

E. CHALLENGES

In 2016, LOGIN BCP conducted 7 (Seven) Learning Sharing Meetings including a special meeting on LOGIN learning event on Women's Political Empowerment.

Meetings summary as follows:

Key Decisions:

1. LOGIN BCP finalized selection criteria of LOGIN institutional membership for Bangladesh Country Platform (BCP).

2. Regularly conducted meetings as per necessity

3. Every decision, including finalization of participants for events are been discussed in presence of the platform members.

LOGIN BCP played a coordination role between Government agencies such as National Institute of Local Government, Local Government Division (LGD), CSOs, NGOs, Civil Society and Donor Agencies. Through the learning events all the stakeholders do get the chance to participate, share their views, ideas and practices with other platform members. LOGIN BCP tried to shape up the platform in a more coordinated way with all the meetings, events and learning visit. All the decisions are been taken in a participa-tory way. NILG Bangladesh provided enormous support to accelerate LOGIN BCP as a coordination hub for exchange of views and learning sharing. LOGIN BCP Country facilitators held several lobby meetings with Local Government Division and different policy platform and member organizations for more effective coordination.

1. On 1 July 2016, as a consequence of tragic terrorist attack we lost 22 lives including our foreign friends. That unwanted and sudden incident made life stuck off in Bangladesh and it took few months to back in normal.

2. Despite all the success, one of the major challenges the BCP found that, all the members are not equally vibrant.

3. New Leadership in Local Government Division, CF spent time for making their understanding LOGIN and BCP mission, vision and activities

No Date (2016) LOGIN BCP Meeting Venue

1 09 February 18th LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

2 10 March 19th LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

3 11 May 20th LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

4 14 July Special Meeting on Steps WPE workshop

5 8 September 21th LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

6 27 October 22th LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

7 01 December 23rd LOGIN BCP Meeting NILG

4. The members who are participating in the learning events outside the country need to share more information and specially follow up activities in relation with the events.

5. Number of aspirants to join in LOGIN events was more than slot allotted for BCP members

According to decision of 18th Country Platform Meeting, a committee formed to review the existing Membership Criteria. This committee comprised of Mr. Anwarul Haq (CARE-BD), Dr. Tofael Ahmed (Manusher Jonno Foundation), Dr. Akira Munakata (JICA), Ms. Aroma Dutta (PRIP TRUST), Mr. Imam Mahmud Riad (Max Foundation) and Mr. Samar Roy (Media Professionals Group). This committee reviewed that criteria and developed a set of recommendations.

Salient Recommendations of this committee are: i) only institution can be member in this network who is subscribing vision and mission of this network; ii) Any institution interested in obtaining LOGIN membership must fill up the 'Knowledge Map Form' and submit to LOGIN Country Facilitator, which will allow them to become a “provisional member”. If any institution is ready to proactively share its resources in fulfilling the vision and mission of LOGIN, only then it will be considered as “LOGIN member” after 3 months' provisional period. Country Platform will have the authority to accept or reject the membership request; iii) If a member attends a LOGIN learning event, s/he must share experiences/learning with the Country Platform formally; iv) Members should be active and if one member is absent in three consecutive meetings, membership of this organization will be automatically cancelled. Each member has the opportunity to have two representatives; and v) Members must send the head of the organization or a senior representative with appropriate authority so s/he can take decisions.

A three member committee worked on developing LOGIN Communication Strategy. Committee members are: Mr. Nitin Paranjape (India), Mr. Samar Roy (Bangladesh) and Ms. Pooja Sarin of LOGIN Secretariat. As a part of this initiative, Mr. Samar Roy participated in different Skype Meetings and one Face-to-Face meeting in LOGIN Secretariat 22-23 August 2016. Dr. Cherian Joseph was the facilitator in this meeting. Draft version of that strategy will present in next General Assembly.

With the success of the event held on 26-28 July 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand on women political empowerment, LOGIN BCP would like to organize a workshop in next year for sharing learning of other countries with Grassroots Local Government Women Leaders and creating space for other participants to learn about grassroots achievement of Bangladesh on this issue.

On behalf of LOGIN BCP, NILG is ready to coordinate ICBP in 2017. This is a peer learning programme between NILG and RSCD (Resource and Support Centre for Development), Mumbai, India. ICBP is an interactive course for capacity building of Grassroots women leaders in Bangladesh.

CDD (Centre for Disability and Development) on behalf of LOGIN BCP is ready to host Cambodian delegation under a LOGIN Peer Learning Programme in 2017. This was sched-uled to held in 2016 but Tragic Terrorist Attack on1 July 2016 created barrier to host that event. At this stage, both parties are ready to go ahead on this progrmme. CDD has a track record on working in disability inclusive local government in Bangladesh.

As the SDG framework doesn't cover the development agendas of Rural Local Government as well as there is no clear indication about the resource allocation. The work on localization of SDG's must also begin as soon as possible for LOGIN to position itself on these critical issues and become instrumental in related conversations within each country platform. LOGIN BCP suggests planning for incorporating SDG framework to address key development issues, agendas for rural local government.

F. MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA OF BCP

G. LOGIN COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

H. WAY FORWARD 2017H.1 Women's Political Empowerment

H.2 Interactive Capacity Building Program (ICBP)

H.3 Peer-Learning Engagement between Cambodia and Bangladesh on Disability Inclusion

H.4 Addressing SDG Goals

Name of Member Institution

Observers

1 Local Government Division2 National Institute of Local

Government3 CIRDAP4 WSP/World Bank5 SDC6 JICA7 CARE Bangladesh8 HELVETAS Swiss

Intercooperation9 The Hunger Project (THP)10 NGO Forum for Public Health11 PRIP Trust12 Swiss Red Cross13 DASCOH14 Water Aid15 UNDP16 Steps Towards Development

(Steps)17 CDD18 Blue Gold Program19 Media Professionals Group

(MPG)20 VSO 21 HLP In Bangladesh

1 BRAC2 Democracywatch3 Khan Foundation4 Max Foundation

Ms. Preeta LallTeam Leader, LOGINClimate Change & DevelopmentDivision, SDC – New Delhi.E-mail: preeta.lall@sdc.net

Ms. Sabina Yasmein LubnaSenior Program OfficerSDC, Embassy of Switzerland, DhakaE-mail: sabina.yasmein@eda.admin.ch

Mr. Ranjan KarmakerCountry FacilitatorLOGIN Bangladesh Country PlatformE-mail: Karmaker.ranjan@gmail.com

Mr. Samar RoyCo-Country FacilitatorLOGIN Bangladesh Country PlatformE-mail: mediaprofessionals@gmail.com

Manan Morshed, Steps Towards Development

Report prepared by: Ranjan KarmakerSamar RoyPronoy GoshSaif Uddin AhmedSalim Bhuiyan

Published on December 2016

Designed by:

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