Electoral promises made by political parties before the national elections in Bangladesh hold little value as those in many instances are not followed up through concrete actions. Citizens also do not give due importance to electoral pledges and holding elected representatives accountable for implementation. Since the government comes with super-majority in Bangladesh it is important that implementation process monitoring of the commitments is done based on a bottom up approach involving the participation of the broader stakeholders including the vulnerable and marginalized people: women, youth, aged, people with disability, religious minority, indigenous people. In the current context, while the electoral pledges of the newly elected government do reflect consistent national aspirations, its accountability in the delivery process is hardly guaranteed.

In view of the above, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has launched a project titled “Advancing Responsiveness and Accountability through Citizen Engagement in Bangladesh”, supported by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). This project will provide a platform to the citizens for claiming delivery of the election pledges of the incumbent government through evidence-based research and subnational and national dialogues. The objective of the project is to achieve enhanced civic participation in the democratic process within the framework of SDG 16 to ensure delivery of electoral pledges of the government.

Target beneficiaries will include CSOs, member of marginalized community, entrepreneurs, academia, media, politicians, international development partners, and members of parliaments and policymakers.

In delivering the outputs CPD will partner with the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, to involve citizens from all over the country since the Platform has 100 CSO members.