Dr. Sultan Hafeez Rahman, ED of BIGD spoke at a divisional level workshop as the chief guest, held in the Chittagong Circuit House on 27 October 2016, organised by the Governance Innovation Unit (GIU) of the Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh. The workshop was organised under the National Governance Assessment Framework (NGAF) project of the GIU and UNDP, Bangladesh. To assess the governance scenario in Bangladesh under the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16, GIU and UNDP, have joined hands to develop a country contextual National Governance Assessment Framework for Bangladesh. A Working Group has been set up to provide inputs to the draft framework. BIGD is one of the working group members with the Department of Public Administration and the Department of Development Studies of the University of Dhaka. As the process of finalising the framework progresses, the aim of organising the workshop is to consult with the field level government and non government stakeholders to get more comprehensive feedback and also to create a sense of ownership among them.
In his speech, Dr Rahman welcomed the participants and emphasised on the needs of the governance assessment initiative in Bangladesh. The program was chaired by Ms. Sayeda Sarwar Jahan, Additional Divisional Commissioner of Chittagong. Ms. Quamrun Naher Siddiqua, Director, GIU; Ms. Sheela Tasneem Haq, Advisor, UNDP; Mr. Radwan Siddiq, National Consultant of the UNDP- Bangladesh also spoke in the program. Among others, Professor Taiabur Rahman, Professor Kazi Maruful Islam of the University of Dhaka, Mr Mohammad Kamrul Hasan, Mr Md. Rokon-Ul-Hasan, Mr Mohammad Ali Nause Russel, Deputy Directors of the GIU, Dr Shanawez Hossain and Mr. Harun Or Rashid from BIGD were present as the Facilitators in the workshop. Prof. Kazi Maruful Islam presented the draft framework with the participants. Different government and non government officials, members of the civil society, local government representatives were present as participants in the workshop.