Reblogged from http://www.inspired-democracy.eu/, a post by Professor Mustafizur Rahman as a Case on the website of INSPIRED, a multi-partner multi-country programme funded by the European Union under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).
Post-Rana Plaza Monitoring: A Civil Society Initiative
On April 24, 2013 the collapse of a building at Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh that housed five apparels factories resulted in the death of 1132 people, mostly workers. This was one of the largest industrial accidents anywhere in the world in recent memory.
Following the Rana Plaza tragedy, major involved stakeholders came up with targeted programmes to address the problems that led to the tragedy.
These proposed actions covered a diverse range of areas including compensation of the dead and the injured workers, treatment of the injured, legal help, rehabilitation of workers who lost their jobs and livelihoods, compliance assurance and work-place safety, trade union rights and relocation of factories.
The Government of Bangladesh (GoB), Associations of major buying houses (Accord and Alliance), entrepreneurs’ association (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association – BGMEA) and the ILO came up with fairly detailed Action Plans. However, there was widespread apprehension on the part of citizens that many of these actions will not be implemented at all or within the stipulated timeframe.
Taking cognizance of this apprehension and also to contribute to the faithful implementation of the Action Plan, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) took up an initiative to bring transparency in the implementation process of the Action Plan and to ensure its implementation.
The Initiative was titled “Post Rana Plaza Monitoring: A Civil Society Initiative”. The exercise was able to bring transparency and accountability in the implementation of the post-Rana Plaza Action Plan through a number of activities including public discussion, dialogue, awareness raising and outreach programmes, publications and media briefings.
By holding the key stakeholders responsible and accountable for the actions to be undertaken and progress being made, the Initiative was able to give voice to the affected people and contribute towards raising the efficacy of implementation of the various Initiatives envisaged under the programme.
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