Baseline Study on Upazila Governance in Bangladesh

Team: Dr. Monzur Hossain (Team Leader), Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder

Sponsor: UNDP

The key component of this study is to conduct a survey to collect information on the baseline indicators on governance, development plans and budget of Upazilas as well as citizen’s perception towards governance and functions of Upazila Parishads. Two-stage random sampling procedures were applied. First, the required number of Upazilas (42) was selected from 21 districts by randomly choosing 3 districts from each of the 7 administrative divisions. At the upazila level, at first, information was elecited from Upazila Chairman, Vice Chairs, UNO and Line Department officials. Second, a nationally representative sample of citizens from each Upazila was determined. A total of 1,680 respondents, 40 citizens from each of the selected 42 Upazilas, were interviewed through Systematic Random Sampling (SRS) method.  

Qualitative surveys such as FGDs and KIIs were conducted to complement the findings of quantitative analysis. Views of three types of respondents were collated so that a complete picture of governance and development outcomes at the Upazila level can be highlighted.  A total of 21 FGDs were conducted in selected 21 districts with UZP chairman, vice chairs, UP Chairpersons and UNOs. Two types of key informant interviews were also conducted with the line department officials and informed citizens reside at villages. A total of 118 government officials were interviewed to understand their perception towards functioning of UZP and about 179 village people (school teachers, UP members, local political leaders, businessmen, etc.) were interviewed to assess their awareness and perception towards UZP activities. 

From the survey at the upazila level, it has been revealed that a total of 11 secondary legislative instruments are available, namely seven rules, one charter of duty, two guidelines and one policy regarding hat/bazaar/jalmahal izara. Out of 14 (according to Article 63(2) of the Act, 2009) rules, only seven have been finalized. It is important to finalize other rules as soon as possible for better functioning of the Upazila system. It is also found that Upazila manual, budget and annual development planning guidelines are available in almost all Upazilas. However, FGD and KII findings indicate that majority of the Upazila officials and elected representatives do not have any knowledge about the contents (rules/regulations) of these instruments.