BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University organized the first Advisory Group meeting of Public Procurement Reform Project II (Extension) at BIGD office on October 19, 2015. The meeting was attended by Advisory Group members Nurul Islam Bhuiyan, Chief Engineer of Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board; Md. Abul Kashem Bhuiyan, Assistant Chief Engineer, Planning and Maintenance Wing of the Roads and Highways Department; Dr. Md. Akhteruzzaman, Director of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ministry of Planning; A.B.M. Ruhunnabi of the Bangladesh Water Development Board; Ms. Khadija Bilkis, Senior Deputy Director, Bangladesh Center for Communication Programmes; Md. Nasimur Rahman Sharif, Deputy Director of the Central Procurement Technical Unit, IMED, Ministry of Planning; Dr. Minhaj Mahmud, Head of Research at BIGD and Team Leader for PPRP–II, and Md. Rafiqul Islam Talukdar, Senior Programme Manager at BIGD and Program Coordinator for PPRP - II.
In addition to the Advisory Group members, the meeting was also attended by Dr. Mirza Hassan, Adjunct Fellow of BIGD and Dr. Wahid Abdallah, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, BRAC University, both of whom are Consultants for PPRP – II. The other BIGD team members of PPRP – II present at the meeting included Syeda Salina Aziz, Kaneta Zillur and Nadir Shah.
The main agenda for the meeting was to discuss the inception report and have a review of the overall progress of the project. Several suggestions about the piloting strategy were expressed during the meeting and the research team worked on incorporating those suggestions into the baseline study and overall strategy.