Speakers at an international seminar in the city on Saturday said a country’s sustainable development is dependent on the transparency and accountability of local government.
The driving force of a country’s overall development is local government institutions, they opined at a two-day seminar on ‘Effective, Accountable and Participatory Local Government Institutions: Perspective South Asia’ at Kakrail auditorium of Department of Public Health Engineering.
The speakers said not only in Bangladesh, local government plays an important role in the improvement of people’s life standard in every developing democratic country.
Secretary of Local Government Division Abdul Malek attended the inaugural seminar as chief guest while Danida Head of Cooperation in Dhaka Pitar Bow Jenson and UNDP Residence Representative Sudipta Mukherjee were present at special guests.
Local Government Division Joint Secretary M Inamul Quader Khan and National Institute of Local Government (NILG) Director General Iqramul Huq also spoke on the occasion.
Secretary Abdul Malek said timely allocation funds for local government bodies and proper implementation of plans can be helpful in materializing people’s expectations.
The local government system in Bangladesh is working for improving living standard of the people through socio-economic and infrastructural development activities, he added.
The secretary said Bangladesh has achieved unexpected advancement in attaining global and national development goals and it has become a lower middle income country.
Currently, there are 70,000 elected councilors and 5,430 election local government institutions in Bangladesh, he said, adding that the local government institutions include 4,540 union councils, 490 upazila councils, 64 district councils, 325 municipalities and 11 city corporations.
