Speakers at a meeting in the city on Sunday suggested ensuring inclusive gender responsive public services in the country to establish rights of women in every sphere of society.
Women community needs easy access to all sorts of public services to ensure their dignified life, the speakers said at a view exchange meeting on “Public Service” at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) here.
ActionAid Bangladesh, in cooperation with different non-government organizations, organized the meeting.
ActionAid Bangladesh Director of Program Policy and Campaigns Asgar Ali Sabri, former research fellow of BIDS Pratima Paul Majumder and representatives of different non-government organizations, among others, addressed the meeting.
Nuzhat Jabin, Manager, Rights to Just and Democratic Governance of ActionAid Bangladesh, presented a keynote paper at the meeting highlighting different aspects of public services in the country.
Pratima Paul Majumder said, “Financing is very important component for quality public service. So, wealthy people should pay their taxes properly to supplement the efforts of the government to provide quality public services.”
Asgar Ali said public service providing organizations should be more accountable and transparent so that the people get easy access to the public services.
He urged the government to take women-friendly initiatives for ensuring inclusive gender responsive public services, which eventually would boost the development process in the country.
In her presentation, Nuzhat Jabin said, “Improving the governance and quality of public service is a long journey. As the country continues to urbanize and develop economically, our expectation of the quality of the service will evolve accordingly.”
“In recent years, much investment has gone to address the issues of quality of public services, but until we recognize that public services should address gendered practical and strategic needs, a section of the community will continue to be marginalized,” she added.
Nuzhat Jabin placed an eight-point proposal, including service through using public funds, gender responsive budgeting, inclusive participation of women in decision making, accountability of public service providers and sexism-free institution for ensuring inclusive gender responsive public services.
She also placed a four-point demand for quality public services. The demands are to ensure domestic resource mobilization efforts, gender budgeting through grassroots’ women participation, legally binding mechanisms of service delivery and devolution of power to strengthen upazilas and municipalities.
