Chairman of the Human Rights Commission (HRC), Dr Mizanur Rahman, underscored the need for a participatory democracy for ensuring good governance, and poverty alleviation in the country. “There is no need to invent any new mechanism because all provisions for a participatory democracy are already there in our Constitution,” he said, while addressing a round table discussion as chief guest at Beximco conference centre, at BEL Tower in the city, on Saturday.
The round table on “Governance and poverty alleviation” was organised by Governance and Rights Centre (GRC), in collaboration with The Independent and Association of Bankers, Bangladesh Ltd, at the conference room of The Independent, at Dhanmondi in the city, on Saturday. Moderated by Dr Zahurul Alam, president of GRC, the programme was addressed, among others, by Shahinoor Wahid, managing editor of The Independent, Mohammad Abubakar, former general manager of Bangladesh Sonali Bank, Abdul Momen, senior adviser of Democracy International, Nusha Yamin Chowdhury, head, vulnerability analysis and mapping, World Food Programme (WFP), Masum Billah, programme manager, BRAC Education Programme, Afroza Khanom, Supreme Court advocate, Maksudur Rahman, retired social activist and freelance journalist, Jerome Sayre, chief of party, Strengthening Democratic Local Governance at Tetra Tech ARD, and Dr Tanvir Ahmed Khan. Prof. Dr Shantana Maria of GRC gave a presentation.
Mizanur Rahman pointed out that there could not be any alternative to democratic governance.
He held confrontational politics and the politicisation of administration responsible for all the problems of the country. Rahman regretted that the country was yet to get a pro-people bureaucracy.
The HRC chairman urged the donors to invest more in the education sector, to resolve social problems. “Once educated, they will be able to fight corruption and all other social injustices,” he pointed out.
Rahman also underscored the need for reducing the gap between madrassa education and modern secular education. Blaming the policy-makers for not
paying attention to madrassa education, he said, “Madrassa-educated people created havoc in the city recently in the name of Hefazat-e-Islam.”
Participating in the open discussion, the speakers put stress on the decentralisation of administration and wealth for reducing poverty. They also pointed out that poverty should not be assessed based only income because there were different forms of poverty.
Prof. Dr Shah Alam spoke as a special guest while Prof. Shanta Maria presented a key note paper on governance and poverty alleviation.
The HRC chairman claimed that a lot of development work took place in various sectors over the years. He specifically mentioned sending labourers to Malaysia, at a cost of only
-With The Independent input
