Reports (BRAC Institute of Governance and Development)

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Bangladesh right to information act 2009
(BRAC University, 2009) Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University; BRAC Institute of Governance and Development
Exploring state of governance at union-level and its relevance for wider influencing
(BRAC University, 2013) Hussain, Akhter; BRAC Institute of Governance and Development
Weak governance has been identified by CARE Bangladesh as an underlying cause of poverty and marginalisation in all four impact statements. Furthermore, it is seen as a domain of change in CARE Bangladesh's pathways of change for achieving impact in the lives of the poorest and the most marginalised. CARE-Bangladesh is implementing Building Pro-poor, Inclusive and Gender Sensitive Local Governance Project to contribute towards building participatory, inclusive, pro-poor and gender sensitive governance in Gaibandha and Lalmonirhat Districts. At the same time, Social and Economic Transformation of the Ultra-Poor (SETU), a Government of Bangladesh and UKaid partnership project, which is funded by eep/shiree, is being implemented in Rangpur, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha districts of Bangladesh.
Giving youth a voice: Bangladesh youth survey 2011
(BRAC University, 2012-10) Graner, Elvira; Yasmin, Fatema Samina; Aziz, Syeda Salina; BRAC Institute of Governance and Development
Based on national level data, children and youth have accounted for approximately 65.7 per cent of the population in 2001. Among those, 26.3 per cent are youth between the age group 15 and 30 (based on GOB/ 10 BANGLADESH YOUTH SURVEY 2011 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2003). The Bangladesh Youth Survey (BYS) was conducted among 6,575 young persons across all 64 districts and on a representational basis. The gender proportion was nearly half and half (3296 men and 3279 women) and a rural - urban proportion was 70 to 30. Among the latter, 4.7 per cent of the sample was conducted in city corporations, as we thought that this might provide interesting insights into social change at these localities. Our analyses of the BYS data base is mainly based on gender, locality (and district), age groups, and on income groups, following self-reported income (see below). The core demographic data indicate that among the youth, the majority of the women have already been married (64 per cent), as opposed to only 28 per cent among the men. Women marry much earlier, while the majority of the 19/20 year old women were already married, this proportion was only reached among the 25/26 year old men. Similarly, more than half of the 18 year old women already had their first child, while this proportion was only 18 per cent among men. At the same time, these ages differ significantly from what youth consider as ideal (see below). Their monthly household incomes range from 2500 to 150,000 Taka. When forming quintiles for our analysis, the lowest income group has monthly incomes of less than 5,000 Taka, the second lowest group of 5000 to 7,500 Taka, and the middle income group of 7,500 to 10,000 Taka. For the two highest income groups we have selected 15,000 Taka as the demarcation line between higher and highest income groups. In regard to education, currently 42 per cent of the men and 27.8 of the women were still enrolled. On the other hand, 5.6 per cent have never been to school, and an additional 5 per cent have not reached class V. Among all youth, 27 per cent have not studied in class 8 and more than 40 per cent have not reached class 10. Locational disparities for those who never attended school are astonishingly low and are only slightly lower in rural areas (5.8 per cent, as compared to 5.3 per cent in urban areas and 5.5 per cent in city corporations). There is a promising trend that rates of non-attendance have declined considerably over the past decade within primary education, from more than 10 per cent among the older group to about 5 per cent among the youngest group. Similarly, while only 60 per cent among the older group had reached class VIII this proportion has increased significantly over the past 15 years, to more than 80 per cent. Yet, while annual rates of about 1.3 per cent are promisingly high, these rates are not likely to increase in a linear mode. Overall, a considerably high share of youth from lower income groups (and hard to reach ones) has remained out of school, until today. Thus, a social analysis based on (self reported) incomes gives rise to serious concerns. Among the lowest two income quintiles rates of ‘never-attendance’ stood at 10.4 and 8.1 per cent, respectively. Integration into the labour market is quite low, and characterised by vast gender disparities. Overall, only 32.4 per cent of all youth in the BYS sample have any experience of work, whether paid or unpaid. Currently, only 27.6 per cent are engaged in paid work or employment (a total of 1,820 persons). At the same time, only 3 per cent classified themselves as unemployed (in addition to 5 per cent where no answer was given). Gender disparities are highly pronounced, while it is about 4 per cent among men it is merely 2 per cent among women. Among the latter, an extremely large group has classified themselves as housewives. As marriage takes place at a rather early age this is also the case among women of younger age groups. At the same time, disparities at different localities are low, but there is, as expected, a strong pattern according to age groups. Among the youngest age group (15 to 20) less than 20 per cent are currently engaged in regular work or employment but rates increase to nearly 45 per cent for the oldest age group (25-30). At the same time, integration into the labour market takes place at extremely early ages for many youth. In a few districts 35 to 50 per cent have started work before reaching the age of 15. When asked for job preferences, the public Giving Youth A Voice - Bangladesh Youth Survey 2011 11 sector has an extremely high attraction (for more than 50 per cent). At the same time, this decreases quite substantially along age groups, from more than 60 per cent to less than 30 per cent. For getting a job, families play a crucial role, particularly for younger groups, whereas friends as mediators are more important among older youth and in city corporations. Labour migration is also an option for many, both men and women. Destinations are partly Dhaka or elsewhere in Bangladesh, and for men, the Arab region is a vital option. Participation in vocational training has remained quite low, at an average of 7 per cent only. This share is considerably higher among men (at 8.3 versus 5.6 per cent) and in city corporations (10.9 per cent, versus 8.5 and 6.1 per cent in other urban and rural areas). Vocational training is highest among the 20-25 age group (9.1 per cent), and this primarily reflects that average ages of participating in these trainings are 17 to 22. Among lower income groups, vocational training is less frequent (5.3 per cent). Yet, this might be a circular conclusion, as those who have undergone vocational trainings are likely to fall into higher income groups. When assessing vocational training policies, a strong feed back was the need to integrate vocational training and placements in companies. When defining democracy, a wide majority stated that elections are a core parameter. At the same time, there are substantial gaps in getting registered as voters. Overall, a majority of more than 70 per cent of all eligible youth (18-30) was registered as voters, and registration was even higher among women (nearly 74 versus 69 per cent, respectively). Among the 18 to 20 year-olds the majority was not yet registered, and even among those aged 21 only about two thirds were registered, although they could have participated in the last election. While gender disparities are quite low, regional disparities are much more pronounced. When assessing the performance of core public “institutions”, there is strong support for the military and local government institutions, whereas dissatisfaction is highest with the police and Members of Parliament (MPs). In regard to corruption perception, again the police and the judiciary are perceived as the two most corrupt entities. Regarding crime, the top five crimes are murder, drug and alcohol abuse, dowry and personal property crimes, and all of these are reported as “very severe” by more than 80 per cent. The perception of crime also has a strong gender pattern. Crimes such as eve-teasing, dowry, and sexual violence are more important for women. When asked about the major sources of information regarding the state, youth have pointed out the importance of newspaper and TV news. When asked about their satisfaction with the performance of the current and previous governments, the two politically elected governments, both the current Awami League and the past BNP, were ranked lower than the last care taker government (CTG). In regard to the recent developments for “Digital Bangladesh” there is quite a mixed picture. On the one hand, there are rather promising developments in regard to the availability of mobile phones. This has spread quite rapidly to about 85 per cent of all youth, a substantial increase even when compared to our last year’s Governance Barometer Survey (at 70 per cent) or the British Council’s “Next Generation” (73 per cent). Regional disparities, as well as social ones, have considerably declined. At the same time, actual utilisation is extremely low, and many young people re-charge their phones with less than 150 Taka per month. In addition, mobile phones are often mainly used for giving each other “missed calls”. At the same time, computer utilisation and internet utilisation have remained dismally low, and highly socially exclusive as they are mainly used by higher income groups only. As only less than 10 per cent of youth utilise these means, we would overall strongly question the notion of a “digital generation”, and rather characterise them as “disconnected youth”. Bangladeshi youth have a strong connectivity to their families and communities. Families are in charge of deciding about most aspects of life, including the selection of a spouse. When in need, families rather than friends or anyone else are approached. When asked about life cycle planning, there are vast disparities 12 BANGLADESH YOUTH SURVEY 2011 between actual ages and what youth consider as ideal. For completing their education and getting married, both are given at about 25, and slightly lower for women. For asking about their leisure activities, we provided a list of fourteen activities, including reading books and newspapers, as well as “religious activities”. While many activities, other than sports, had a high level of agreement the ranking that was done as a second step showed a highly concentrated pattern. Religion and reading novels had an amasingly high level of priority, irrespective of gender and other parameters. For a better understanding of young people’s ideas about social change, we have asked them about the acceptance of a few controversial issues. While gender equality, working women, friendship with the opposite gender, and family planning seem to have a general consensus, some others face an extremely strong opposition. The latter include divorce and marriage without the consent of the parents. This was also confirmed when asking them how independent they felt in terms of decision making. Most young people felt quite independent in regard to decisions about choosing employment, how to spend money, choosing friends or exercising mobility. On the other hand, choosing their future spouse showed the highest level of dependence. When asked about the major challenges for young people, a large number of answers from the open ended question concentrated on unemployment, illiteracy, and lack of money and poverty. At the same time, the ranking of challenges has confirmed this, in addition to concerns about maintaing good health and getting quality education. From this perspective it is of no surprise that when asked about what the state could do to support young people, a large majority (of more than 5,000 among the 6,575 respondents) opted for “improve the quality of education” as a first priority. Other aspects were to create more job opportunites for the youth, although this was mainly given as a second priority.
The State of Governance Bangladesh 2016: regulation process performance
(BRAC Univeristy, 2016) Rahman, Sultan Hafeez; Abdallah, Wahid; Enam, Ahmed Asif; Ferdous, Nahid; Rahman, Muhammad Ashikur; Rashid, Md. Harun-Or-; Razzaque, Farhana; Uddin, Mohammed Misbah; Zahan, Iffat; Zaman, Nabila; Zillur, Kaneta; BRAC Institute of Governance and Development; Adib, Hossain Ishrat; Sajid, Parsa Sanjana; Chowdhury, Saika Nudrat
BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) has been publishing the State of Governance (SOG) Report since 2006. This year, the SOG has focused on four kinds of governance: Democratic Governance, Public Sector Governance, Economic Governance and Social (Health) Governance. An indicator-based approach, as was used in SOG 2015-16, is also adopted for this SOG. This approach allows for simplicity, tractability and comparability over large number of specific units of observations, for example, time, agency or district. Using this approach, the researchers identify factors that influence performance, thus providing valuable insights to policy makers on policy designs. A mix of both quantitative and qualitative analysis is applied with a varying degree depending on the availability of disaggregated data. SOG 2016 looks into three types of governance problems: i) Issues that are internal to the government (i.e. bureaucratic), ii) Issues that occur in the space where the government interacts with other non-government actors in the society and iii) Issues where the government plays the role of maintaining a healthy environment for private sector interaction. Given these outstanding issues, two types of indicators have been identified: the processes and the performances. The process indicators capture the government inputs and activities, whereas the performance indicators focus on the output of the internal to the government or external (between government and a private entity or between two private entities) interactions. With these two types of indicators in mind, the SOG 2016 examines a set of process and performance indicators, across space and time. Democratic Governance Focusing mostly on the local government elections in Bangladesh, this chapter follows a framework based on four globally accepted foundations - integrity, participation, representation and competition. Within this framework, the chapter looks into the role of competition in election, voter turnout, voter list, electoral expenditure and electoral violence. This chapter finds that voter turnout has been low in recent city corporation elections of Dhaka North, Dhaka South and Chittagong in comparison to other city corporation elections held in earlier years of the decade. The electoral competition in some elections, for example, the national election and city corporation elections in Dhaka and Chittagong, have been affected by boycotts by the main opposition party, which may have also resulted into lower voter turnout in those elections. In addition, there appears to be a striking positive pattern between the percentage of voter turnout and the winner's share of vote casts, which requires further attention from the authorities. Data also shows that election time violence has increased in Bangladesh in recent years. A further issue of concern is the increasing th gender gap in some regions observed in the final voter list prepared in 2014 before the 10 National Elections. Public Sector Governance This chapter discusses the efficacy of the public sector based on two activities, the allocation and utilisation of the Annual Development Program (ADP) expenditures and the execution of Mobile Courts. The discussion looks into the institutions that play important roles in public sector governance, the Right to Information and Information Commission and, Anti-Corruption Commission. Finally, the chapter examines the issues related to the municipalities and their implications for service delivery. The analysis suggests that approximately three-fourth of the annual ADP fund between 2011-12 and 2015-16 has been allocated to ten ministries or divisions, many of which regularly engage with heavy infrastructure projects and large social programs. Analysis of the legal framework and procedural apparatus of the Mobile Court operations shows that despite having less administrative units, majority of the divisions excel in having more Mobile Court operations than the set target. The section on Right to Information and Information Commission describes the institutional framework and highlights significant variations in Request For Information (RFI) across districts and ministries. The overall picture of implementation of RTI is marked by the diminishing trend of RFI in recent years. The section on Anti-Corruption analyses the activities of the Anti-Corruption Commission across the country. Among the corruption complaints, more than half are discontinued and filed for record. Additionally, it is found that, across the divisions, the pending rate of the inquiries is very high (more than half of all inquiries in most cases). There is a considerable variation across districts in the number of complaints submitted; something the agency should delve more into to find the cause of this variation. The chapter concludes with a case study on the current state of resources and service quality in all the municipalities in Bangladesh. The report highlights considerable number of unfilled positions in most departments across classes and divisions as well as in road networks, drainage system and bridges and culverts as well as water supply, street light and solid waste disposal in varied degrees. Economic Governance Economic governance focuses on three topics: labour, tax and the financial sector governance. The section on labour governance analyses the role of ministerial and administrative bodies and discusses issues related to labour rights and collective bargaining, labour conflicts, and workers' safety. Historically, Bangladesh came a long way to enact a consolidated labour act. Nevertheless, the law is yet to recognise the issue of workers right to association and negotiation. Even though it is a key institution, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) receives less priority in terms of budget allocation. With the rising numbers of industries and industrial disputes, insufficient number of courts cause serious case backlogs. The workers participation in trade union is dismal compared to the size of the workforce, although the registration shows some improvement after the Rana Plaza disaster. Implementation of minimum wage in RMG sector remains a major challenge for smaller factories and factories located at other cities. Industrial safety remains a major concern in the sector and the progress of the reform initiatives taken after the Rana Plaza disaster are yet to achieve the desired success. Analysis on tax governance looks at the governance of tax administration and collection in Bangladesh with a special emphasis on the indirect tax, particularly on VAT. The section reveals that the tax-GDP ratio for Bangladesh to be low in comparison to the target as set in the seventh Five-Year Plan as well as in comparison to other Asian countries. The government accordingly has made a number of tax related reforms and undertaken a few initiatives to improve tax collections. There has been an increasing trend in indirect tax revenue collection, particularly of VAT, since 2009. Despite this encouraging observation, an analysis of the projected and collected revenue reveals a considerable gap between the two and the NBR can put in greater effort towards revenue collection. There is also evidence of high unpaid income tax revenue and a considerable backlog of tax-related cases. Alternate Dispute Resolution, which is yet to be mainstreamed in Bangladesh, could be one way to address the issue of case backlogs in the country. Analysis of the financial sector governance looks into the financial reform measures and Basel related steps that have been undertaken over the years to enrich the financial system in terms of size and depth. The performance Indicators of the banking sector seems satisfactory. Following the global financial crisis of 2007, Bangladesh has formulated and implemented the Basel III recently for the banking sector. The financial sector has been doing well in terms of indicators like capital adequacy, leverage ratio and liquidity ratio. The banking sector in terms of absorbing shocks is reportedly in a moderate condition. Large non -performing loans have been a big concern for the last few years and no sign of significant improvement is observed. Health Governance Analysis of social (health) governance looks into an important component of the public health care system, the Upazila Health Complexes (UHCs). Using the MIS reports of Director General Health Services, the chapter sheds lights on a set of indicators measuring performance of the UHCs and the resources available at the UHCs as well as makes an attempt to find any connection between the resources and the performances. The performance indicators are OPD visits, emergency visits, hospital admission rate and total patient days whereas the four resources considered are the availability of the doctors, availability of the nurses, availability of functional equipment and the quality of the referral system from lower health care facilities measured by number of doctors available in Union Sub-Centres (USCs). Analysis of the contribution of resources in determining performance reveal that some of the resources are indeed closely associated with performance of UHCs. More specifically, the referral system seems to be an important factor for the OPD visits, whereas for emergency visits, it is the availability of the doctors and functional equipments that are closely related. For admission rate, all the four resource factors are important whereas all factors except nurses' availability are closely associated with the number of days patient stayed in the hospital. In conclusion, the findings of the report can be summarised by a few general observations. First, the regulatory provisions are often well founded and designed even though exception exists, as in the case of labour. There is still general room for improvements and current reform initiatives are bringing the gap closer. Second, the resource constraints, for example human resource, are quite stark despite provisions, especially in some areas and agencies and the government should try to reduce, if not eliminate, these gaps soon. This is particularly important since these resources eventually have significant implications for performance as in the case of UHCs. Third, extreme measures like boycotts, strikes and violence in a few occasions are observed (elections, labour right movements etc.) and the government should find the root causes and address these issues accordingly. Finally, the government should work on modernisation of the enforcement system through modern capacity building, provision of incentives and small 'nudges' type interventions.
The State of Governance Bangladesh 2014-2015: institutions, outcomes, accountability
(BRAC University, 2015) Rahman, Sultan Hafeez; Ahmed, Kazi Niaz; Aziz, Syeda Salina; Mannan, Sadiat; Rahman, Muhammad Ashikur; Rashid, Md. Harun-Or-; Razzaque, Farhana; Uddin, Mohammed Misbah; Zillur, Kaneta; BRAC Institute of Governance and Development; Chowdhury, Liaquat Ali
The current report, i.e. SOG 2014-2015 uses a set of simply constructed quantitative indicators supplemented by qualitative assessments to 'gauge' governance performance of Bangladesh around three broad analytical categories, i.e., political, economic and social sectors. It is a pioneering study in that, it is the first attempt to investigate governance performance using quantitative indicators across a wide range of sectors, to the best of our knowledge. The research underpinning the report was challenged by both complex methodological and empirical issues. 'Governance' is not an easy term to define, let alone 'measure.' Not surprisingly therefore, there are an impressive array of methods which specialists have used to address governance performance, depending on the definition used and the particular context in question. The current report chooses to deploy indicators of governance performance which are outcome or output based and do not consider the processes at work which produce the outcomes, with some exceptions. The indicators may not represent governance variables directly but rather may be inferred from them. Hence the claim in the report is not that the set of indicators bear a causal relationship with governance outcomes, but rather that they represent credible association with the underlying status of governance in each area being considered. In cases such as these, the choice of indicators is critical to the analysis. Measuring the complex processes at work which, perhaps more accurately represent governance variables, would be far more difficult to measure, resource intensive and at least equally challenged by availability of data. To be credible such methods would involve large scale perception surveys which are well beyond the scope of the current investigation. Given the pioneering nature of the current report, the method of analysis used is adequate, except that the benefit of a longer set of comparable data is a major limitation. The findings and conclusions thus come with caveats. Nevertheless, the report yields interesting results and we intended to spark greater public debate on an issue of seminal contemporary concern for Bangladesh' political and economic future. Chapter two investigates some important dimensions of democratic governance such as voice and accountability by analysing the legislative productivity, freedom of expression measured by media freedom, the rule of law by as reflected in the judicial work and activities of law enforcing agencies of Bangladesh as well as an assessment of the national elections. The section on legislative productivity assesses the three universal parliamentary functions: representation, legislation and oversight. A striking finding with regards to representation in parliament, is the sharp increase in the share of MPs from among the business community in course of four parliamentary elections. Their representation rose from 38.4 percent in the fifth Parliament to 61.3 percent in the ninth Parliament. Although there has been an increase, it is not meaningful as it is still very low. Less than 10 women were directly elected in the fifth, seventh and eighth Parliaments, though the ninth Parliament registered some progress with 19 directly elected women members. Minority representation has also increased in the last (ninth) Parliament compared to the previous Parliaments. While the youth have a large share in the country's population, the percentage of youth MPs (below the age of 30) has been low as may be expected. Due to political inexperience, they are less likely to win party nomination. Thus their under representation in the Parliament excludes the 'voice' of a a large segment of the country's population in the legislative process. Reflecting youth aspirations in legislation is important to protect their right and address their specific needs, i.e. advance their welfare. Another feature to note is that persistent boycott of the main opposition party in every national Parliament to date has seriously undermined the quality of representation in Parliament and hence its effectiveness. In Bangladesh, though the number of bills passed in the Parliament has increased gradually in the successive Parliaments, the session wise and yearly legislative outputs is lower than other countries. Additionally, most legislation has been introduced as amendments while new bills constitute only onethird of the total. The executive dominance in the legislative process is also prominent in the country's parliamentary functions. The effectiveness of parliamentary oversight in Bangladesh has been limited due to a series of factors, including limited independence of parliamentary committees, the capacity of parliamentary staff and the lack of responsiveness of ministries to parliamentary recommendations. The majority of the committees have failed to report to the House on a regular basis; one-third nver submitted any reports on the workings of ministries. In some cases, a remarkably large number of reports were prepared; even then, however very few of the recommendations are accepted. The lack of effective scrutiny by the standing committees remains a matter of concern despite an active democratic process which has lasted over 2 decades. Over the last decade, both print and broadcast media have increased remarkably in terms of numbers. Significantly, media growth has also been characterised by close links between the business community and the political parties. However, it must be recognised that freedom of expression however is undermined by personal security concerns exemplified in the statistics on physical assaults on journalists. In this context, it may be noted that the recently passed National Broadcasting Policy 2014 also raised concerns among national and international civil society organisations on specific aspects of it. Apart from policy related impediments, actions of law enforcement agencies on journalists is a major deterrent for journalists in doing their work. The section on rule of law analyses the performance, efficiency and integrity of the judiciary and the law enforcement agencies of Bangladesh. Regarding judicial governance in Bangladesh, it is observed that, the case disposal rate is generally low. Shortage of judges is also a major reason for the case backlog in Bangladesh. Currently there are 104 Judges in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, of which 97 judges serve in the High Court Division and only seven judges are allocated to the Appellate Division. Moreover, the number of benches in the High Court Division is also inadequate to deal with the huge number of pending and newly filed cases. Grossly inadequate infrastructure facilities also remain a major constraint to progress in speeding up disposal of cases and hence offer quicker dispensation of justice. About four to five judges at a duty station have to use one court or chamber room on rotation basis which is also a limitation as these judges cannot utilise their working hours properly. Besides, lawyers' tendency to prolong case proceedings is another major reason for the delay in disposing off litigations. About the law and order situation, the number of criminal cases in Bangladesh is on the rise. The lowest number of criminal cases was recorded in 2004 with 119,323 cases, whereas the highest was reported in 2014. There has been an alarming increase in the number of murder cases, above three thousand every year, with the highest number at 4514 being recorded in 2014. The rise of disappearances is a recent phenomenon in the law and order scene of the country, with serious implications for the overall status of the rule of law in the country. Credible electoral management is a pre-condition for sustainable democracy which stands on the democratic principles of universal suffrage and political equality. In order to do a meaningful assessment of the electoral system of Bangladesh, there is a need to observe it through multiple lenses, each of which allows a deeper look into the intricacies of the nation's political context. Four major indicators are used for this purpose- integrity, participation, representation and competition to understand the state of the electoral system. Both the constitution and the Representation of the People Order (RPO) of 1972 (amended 2008) includes enough provisions for holding a credible election. Despite the many issues cited and allegations made by the losing opposition parties since the beginning of the democratic process in 1991, the successive national parliamentary elections were deemed to have been held in a free and fair manner, with acceptable standards of accountability and transparency. Bangladesh' transitional caretaker system of government which oversaw the elections from 1991 to 2008 had won credibility locally and won acclaim internationally. There was widespread acceptance among the intellengsia and civil society institutions that the democratic process was being consolidated as a result of the successful administration of elections. However, the experience of the elections to the tenth Parliament has been very different. The major opposition party boycotted the polls, and as consequence a large number of candidates won their seats uncontested. The political event was criticised by several influential analysts locally and internationally, and raised concerns about the democratic gains made till then through competitive elections and the exercise of the rights of franchise, as well as the seminal institution of democracy in this regard—the Election Commission. Chapter three assesses the economic governance of the country by considering three key sectors of the economy, i.e. financial institutions, infrastructure and macroeconomic stability. The section on financial institutions includes both banks and non-bank financial institutions. The findings show that all the key indicators of banking sector performance have improved over the years, though the rate of improvement has slowed in recent years. The share of non-performing loans (NPLs) in total loans was about 40 percent in 1998-99 which declined to about 10 percent in 2014. The NPL values do not indicate any improvement if looked at the absolute values, rather the fluctuation depends on how the supervisory regulations are enforced. The capital adequacy ratio also increased from 7 percent in 2001 to around 11 percent in 2014. The overall trend in profitability measured in terms of rate of return on equity and rate of return on assets show considerable improvement from 2000 till 2011 which deteriorates thereafter. In all the indicators, state owned commercial banks (SCBs) are lagging behind. The government's decision to recapitalise the SCBs has not been free from criticism. It has increased its fiscal pressure while easing liquidity and enhancing capital adequacy of the banks. More significantly it has reduced their NPLs and pushed down the sector NPL average as well. However, there is a palliative- the situation will worsen unless the SCBs undertake serious reforms. The overall bank governance index shows an improvement by seven percent in last ten years. However, this must be viewed in the back drop of the rescheduling. From December 2013 to September 2014, 100 billion taka was rescheduled without which NPL would have been more than Taka 82 billion for the last quarter of 2013. Compared to banks, the non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) account for a relatively smaller share of the financial sector. The classified loan ratio fluctuates around seven percent on average. Over a 10-year period, nonbank financial institutions have succeeded in managing their quality of loans, which records an improvement of 26 percent as reflected in their classified loan ratio. Their profitability and earnings decreased by 42 percent and 54 percent decline compared to the base year. Access to and coverage of electricity in Bangladesh has improved significantly in the last ten years. The percentage of population with electricity increased from 36 to 68 percent from 2004 to 2014 and per capita power consumption increased from 150 to 250 kWh. At the same time, the average cost of supply more than doubled in value. Subsidy in the power sector has increased to bridge the gap between production cost and the income generated from electricity. In spite of this increase, load shedding remains a major problem affecting service quality, and both aggregate demand and supply in the economy. System loss has decreased but it is still higher than the internationally accepted rate of seven to eight percent. The expenditure-income ratio of the power development board is still very high, implying high losses. The electricity governance index shows that in 2014 there has been an overall improvement of 19 percent. Even though Bangladesh has high land to road ratio, if road availability is viewed in terms of population, it shows that road (kilometres) per thousand people improved marginally. The data also reveal that the increase is largely due to improvements in local road network (LGED roads), and per capita highways and zila roads actually decreased in the last ten years. Quality of roads has generally decreased over the years. One estimate, suggests that the country lost almost USD 400 million in asset value per year due to lack of maintenance; without maintenance the road network would be largely unusable in 20 years. BRTA revenue collection target was at 90 percent on average annually, though in most years the revenue collection rate was below the target rate. The aggregate road indicator registers a decline of 11 percent from 2004 to 2014. The section on macroeconomic review shows that private investment shows a steady increase over the years in last two decades though the rate of progress was slow. Public investment was at around six percent or more until 2000, but decreased to four to five percent after 2005 and then improved in the last three years. is noted that to achieve a growth rate of over 7.5 percent, the required share of investment in GDP should be 28 to 32 percent whereas the current rate is on average 22 percent which “given the present political situation, even the most optimistic do not see happening in the near future”(ibid). A similar trend is also observed with respect to foreign investment. The contribution of remittance to GDP has increased steadily over the years. However, in 2013 and 2014, the number of migrant workers dropped compared to the previous two years, following problems in labour market in housing and agricultural sectors in Saudi Arabia and some some other Middle Eastern countries. Problems with legal documentation Bangladesh workers remain unresolved despite efforts by Bangladesh. Bangladesh experienced a rapid increase in trade in terms of volume and as a percentage of GDP. The worldwide recession led to declining trade as a share of GDP from 2008 to 2010 and recovery in recent years has been modest. However, it is important to note that besides RMG no other industry has exhibited similar growth and the excessive reliance on one industry for export earnings carries risks to the economy. The external economic governance indicator is 1.36 meaning that compared to 2004 the external economic performance, measured in terms of remittance inflow, number of expartiate workers and trade openness increased by 36 percent. The chapter also shows that tax revenue as a share of total revenue increased and the tax-GDP share also registered steady improvement 2008 though the rate of growth fluctuates. ADP utilisation has improved over the years though 10 percent of the budget still remains unspent every year. Aggregation of fiscal management variables (including tax-GDP ratio, budget deficit and ADP utilisation show overall performance marginally improved by four percent in 2014 from 2004. The contribution is positive mostly because of improvements in the tax-GDP ratio by 13 percent. In ten years, the trade- GDP ratio records the maximum improvement of 13 percent. Budget deficit went down five percent and utilisation rate of ADP improved marginally. Chapter four comprises an assessment of governance in the education sector taking into consideration some important dimensions of education in primary, secondary and higher secondary education. The findings of the study confirm that the performance indicators of education at different levels have improved rapidly over time, in terms of increasing pass rate, enrolment, higher scores in public examinations and lower dropout rates, and class repetition rates. For instance, the pass rates in both SSC and in HSC which was 48 per cent in 2004 increased markedly to 89 per cent and to 71 percent respectively in 2014. At the primary level, the pass rate increased from 92in 2010 which increased to about 99 percent in 2013. As expected, the chapter found a positive correlation between the pass rates of SSC and HSC in the period 2003— 2013. The dropout rate and number of repeaters at primary and secondary level also decreased. The training of teachers and student -teacher ratio are two important indicators of education quality. The analysis in this chapter also shows that the share of trained teachers in primary and secondary education increased over time. However, the student-teacher ratio still shows a serious in adequacy in the number of teachers. This, despite a doubling of the ADP allocation (budget outlay) between FY 2013-2014 compared with FY 2006-2007. On the demand side, The utilisation of ADP allocations at all levels was highest in last month (June) of FY, ie, the spending peaks at the end of the fiscal year due to a rush to use the budget outlays to prevent it from being downsized in the following year. Such acceleration in a short period of time repeated almost every year reflects inefficient management of scarce resources and almost certainly risks the quality of expenditures. The study also assessed the training of SMCs as a 'process' indicator of education sector governance and found limited impact of such such training over time. The data shows that percentage of schools with at least 3 members of the SMC who received training moderately increased. However, for government primary schools it decreased compared to registered non-government primary schools. Finally, this chapter constructed a composite indicator based on seven variables including resource, process and output of education. The indicator shows that governance of the education improved 6 percent in terms of resource and process and 72 percent for output over the last 10 years. Despite the improvement in various aspects of education sector in Bangladesh, quality of education remains a concern. Further, the education sector shows frequent changes in many areas, including books, curricula, examination system and grading systems. Such high frequency of changes is likely to affect the quality and school performance adversely, while at the same time it makes measuring performance more difficult. Data and interviews conducted for this research show that even though grades have improved significantly, the performance of the students (who achieved high grades) in subsequent public university examinations are very disappointing. Many educationists expressed their disappointment about the overall education system, curricula, retention rates especially of female students beyond primary school, grading standards, examination methods, physical facilities and government policy. On the other hand, the chapter also shows that frequent question paper leakage in public examinations has become a serious concern for the education sector in Bangladesh. These observations reflect poorly on the sector's governance, and remain challenges which public policy must address in the coming years. In brief, judged by numbers alone, the picture on many dimensions of education sector performance in Bangladesh appears bright. Admittedly Bangladesh has made commendable strides in some areas of education such as access, enrolment, gender gaps in school education, etc. in the past two decades. The research in the present report, suggests that assessed by several other qualitative indicators, the performance of the sector seems less bright. If Bangladesh is to attain higher and sustainable growth and to realise its dream of becoming a middle-income country by 2021, it must address the governance challenges of the sector by channelling more resources and improving both policy and its implementation. Chapter five concerns health sector governance by considering maternal health, child health, health financing and the availability of health sector professionals which require specialised skills (e.g. doctors, nurses, technicians, etc) in the health sector. The analysis in the chapter suggests that over the last two decades maternal mortality rate has declined by more than 66 percent i.e. at the rate of 5.5 per cent each year. The percentage of women receiving antenatal care and those availing of services from skilled birth attendants have increased gradually over the last decade. However, the adolescent fertility rate still remains a major concern for Bangladesh. One important finding is that though the trend in contraceptive use is improving, the gender parity and women/girls' autonomy is yet to become a grass roots level reality in decisions regarding use of contraception. Despite substantial improvement in a number of maternal health indicators noted above, other important indicators such as adolescent fertility rate, rural-urban inequalities in access to maternal health services, etc. remain challenging areas in Bangladesh. In terms of child health performance, the combined trend in the indicators (infant and under-five mortality rates) shows that under-five mortality rate have improved more compared to infant mortality rate. Significantly, the decline in infant mortality rates has been higher for males than females. Anthropometric measures suggest that the number of children with lower weight and height measurements in relation to their age is increasing. Bangladesh suffers from one of the highest levels of malnutrition (42 and 31.9 for stunting and weight respectively for children under 5 years). The prevalence of malnutrition is greater in terms of height as opposed to weight and malnutrition prevalence rate (weight for age) has affected female children more than males in the last decade. Regarding human resources for health, the overall trend is positive—the aggregate human resource indicator shows an increase of 28 per cent in 2013 relative to the base year of 2004. However, the 'story' is more complex. The findings also suggest thatthe number of nurses per 1,000 persons in Bangladesh is the lowest in the world. The density of physicians (number of doctors per square kilometre) still remains highly inadequate and the trend shows that the improvement rate is slow and less noticeable in recent years. Similarly, increase in the number of community health workers has not shown significant improvement compared to the base year, ie, 2004. Though the health sector is considered a high government priority, the statistics on health financing shows a declining trend in budget allocations in recent years. The present health sector expenditure level is nominal compared to that of a number of other developing nations in the region. The data also shows that the gap between public healthcare expenditure and per capita expenditure increased over the last decade. The finding of this section confirms that currently in Bangladesh, the major share of health expenses are covered from individual savings or borrowings. In summary, the financing of health care in Bangladesh is dominated by out of pocket payments. This means that the poor are often forced to pay while seeking health services even if their ability to pay is at its lowest. Chapter six of the SOG 2014-2015 concludes that this report is a first step towards preparing a much more comprehensive and meaningful set of 'governance indicators' which would enable a more solid 'guage' of the country's progress in governance outcomes in key areas. Efforts to improve the methodology and and empirical analysis (quantitative and qualitative) using both secondary and primary data will continue to this end. The findings of the current report suggest that despite progress in several indicators of governance performance, there remain key vulnerabilities and challenges to be addressed by public policy in the future, and that, the much needed public action ought to be more broad based through involvement of civil society institutions as well as other important stakeholders. The analysis also suggests that while quantitative indicators are crucially important, it is important to complement these with qualitative assessment to yield a richer and more comprehensive understanding of governance performance.
The State of Governance Bangladesh 2013
(BRAC University, 2014-08) Institute of Governance Studies; Ahmed, Tofail; Iqbal, Kazi; Mahmud, Minhaj; Nazneen, Sohela; Rahman, Ashikur; Rahman, Sultan Hafeez
State of cities: Re-thinking Urban Governance in Narayanganj
(BRAC University, 2013-07) Institute of Governance Studies; Aminuzzaman, Dr. Salahuddin M.; Amin, Dr. ATM Nurul; Ahmed, Dr. Nasiruddin; Institute of Governance Studies
Institute of Governance Studies: annual report 2012
(BRAC University, 2012) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
Institute of Governance Studies: annual report 2011
(BRAC University, 2011) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
Institute of Governance Studies: annual report 2010
(BRAC University, 2010) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2012 : regions, representation, disparity
(BRAC University, 2013-09) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2010-11: policy, influence, ownership
(BRAC University, 2012-08) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
Governance Barometer Survey Bangladesh 2010
(BRAC University, 2011) Aziz, Syeda Salina; Graner, Elvira; Institute of Governance Studies
State of cities: urban governance in Dhaka
(BRAC University, 2012-05) Institute of Governance Studies; Wood, Dr. Geoffrey; Devine, Dr. Joseph; Hasan, Barrister Manzoor; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2009 : entitlement, responsiveness, sustainability
(BRAC University, 2010-11) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2008 : confrontation , competition , accountability
(BRAC University, 2009-08) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2007 : expectations, commitments, challenges
(BRAC University, 2008-05) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2006 : knowledge , perceptions, reality
(BRAC University, 2006-12) Centre for Governance Studies; Centre for Governance Studies
Institute of Governance Studies : annual report 2007
(BRAC University, 2007) Institute of Governance Studies; Institute of Governance Studies
Centre for Governance Studies: annual report 2006
(BRAC University, 2006-09) Centre for Governance Studies; Centre for Governance Studies

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