“The goal of governance initiatives should be to develop capacities that are needed to realize development that gives priority to the poor, advances women, sustains the environment and creates needed opportunities for employment and other livelihoods.”

— United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Recent development literatures have been overwhelming with the rising and shining concept of ‘Governance’. As an umbrella concept, governance consists of the customs and establishments by which authority in a country is exercised.  According to World Bank (WB), this includes the process by which governments are nominated, checked and replaced; the ability and space of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that administer economic and social interactions among them. Again, governance takes place at different levels, from international bodies, to national state institutions, to local government agencies, to community or business associations. These dimensions often overlap, creating a complex network of actors and interests. Internationally, governance and its inherent philosophies have widely been acknowledged when the declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and after its successful endeavour, recent acceptance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among the member countries of United Nations are set to be materialised. To be very specific, when the SDG 16 gives a heads up for the promotion of ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’, it explicitly covers about all ranges of ‘governance’.

In recent years, all developing countries around the world are confronting challenges like weak and poor public administration, gradual rise in crime and violence, curses in management and utilisation of natural resources, slowed down growth, corruption in both public and private sphere etc. and these are forcing the leaders, researchers, policy makers and even the state to rethink about the conventional interactions with implementation of different policies. Due to many avoidable and unavoidable circumstances Bangladesh remains in this radius. Although there have been striking reduction in infant mortality rate and persistent control over fertility rate; indispensably needed increase in agricultural productivity and efficiency in food production; exemplary increase in the number of educated girls and enrolment of children in schools; praiseworthy increase in life expectancy and model win over some infectious epidemics; substantial decrease in extreme poverty; and many other notably positive factors the country has always been vulnerable towards major problems in governance for ensuring equity and development. Experts don’t find us any near to the practices of ‘good governance’. Because, good governance exists when government has the legitimacy to the governed, public procurement and other public dealings are transparent and efficient, public spending is accounted as intended and duly audited which results in the disbursement of same amount of money from treasury as expensed in financing the development projects, taxes are being collected duly and justifiably, from individuals to state and non-state institutions all are bound to the law and a strong judiciary holds everyone accountable and protects human rights and liberties, a strong civil society can work independently of state interference, and when such many factors regarding transparency, accountability, competence and rule of law are ensured duly and rightly.

A study on the relationship between financial accountability in public sector and practice of good governance in Bangladesh, conducted by WB found that in many cases the number of bank accounts holding public funds is unknown or the portfolios are not maintained recorded properly. The study also identified that a number of accounts and wide distribution of cheque books have aggravated the situation with a potential risk of illegitimate spending. In the face of such many well documented reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of public funds, little action has been taken, encouraging further sickening practices.

And though the country returned to parliamentary democracy following a mass movement for democracy in 1990, the formation of democratic norms and practices has not been smooth here. Nowadays successive governments have convinced themselves that those who criticise any failings of policy or aspect of governance are hostiles, even enemies, and are probably in collusion with their political opponents. This uninterrupted ritual of official hostility and negligence towards constructive has purposefully undermined civil societies activities, and been proved to be seriously detrimental to good governance in Bangladesh.  Furthermore accountability of the legislature to the people and that of the executive to the legislature could not yet be established. In addition, repression and violation of human rights from law enforcement agencies is increasing day by day. The police's role in maintaining people's security is very disheartening. Laws and regulations are now and then violated by themselves. The people's saviours have become a reason of terror in the minds of the people. In a nutshell, there are missing links in the chain of accountability between the public, the legislature, the judiciary and the executive.

 Policy experts have strived to find ways to recover and prescribe suggestions. Some common suggestions embrace- strengthening legitimacy by establishing a completely independent Election Commission so that it could hold the election, both at the local and national level, freely and fairly without any interference, fear and intimidation; forming a fully independent and efficient judiciary in the real sense, by removing all sorts of challenges that still remains; ensuring an effective national parliament with the participation of all political parties and reconstructing it as a forum for political discourse and decision making; with a provision of central control only when needed, creating an interference free environment for local governments and letting them exercise autonomy over decision making; inaugurating accountability and transparency at all levels of both administration and elected officials by applying the institutional mechanism; and ensuring that the Anti-Corruption Commission and other law enforcing agencies are strengthened with adequate personnel and finance, also allowed and motivated to discharge their assigned duties freely and fairly.

In Bangladesh, practice of good governance is still challenging predominantly because there are powerfully vested interest groups which benefit from the status quo and resist changes. Alongside the unavoidable losses due to frequent natural calamities or catastrophes, the country has experienced truly avoidable nature of immeasurable losses because of political instability and conflict of interests from the end of caregivers. The people, nevertheless, are remarkably resilient in the face of adversities and mostly live on hopes. And not that, governments in Bangladesh have been perpetrating all-out negative things. Governments have so many instances of making country march forward and applying of good governance and democracy also.

So not until the people’s hope is frustrated enough or disappear, the spirit of the concept of good governance and its honest application by the state, its institutions and mechanisms and by all concerned is a compulsion for a sustainable future for Bangladesh, hard-earned, hard-developed and yet-to-go-thousand-miles.

The writer is Post-Graduate Student and Research Associate

Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka

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