Ensuring Transparency Through Citizen’s Charter and Right to Information

Abstract

Transparency is one of the most significant features of an effective local government. Considering the importance of transparency in the governing system, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) embedded the provisions for the Citizen’s Charter (CC) and the Right to Information (RTI) in the Local Government (Union Parishad) Act, 2009 (the Act of 2009). Section 50 of the Act of 2009 specifies that the Union Parishad (UP) would distribute various information (e.g., CC, income expenditure statement, budget statement, scheme/project list, decisions of various meetings, report of latest meeting, implementation status of the decisions of the meeting, and all notices and circulars of the UP) through its website. This chapter describes the process of utilization of CC and RTI for people’s engagement in the participatory planning (PP) and participatory budgeting (PB) processes.