Bangladesh team visits KILA

A team of high-level officials from Bangladesh has arrived at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) to learn about democratic decentralisation and child-friendly panchayats. Representatives of the UNICEF from Bangladesh are also accompanying them.

The 40-member team is here to evolve a development strategy for the backward local body institutions of 20 districts in Bangladesh. The training programme has been organised in association with the United Nationals Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).

Though, Bangladesh has made significant progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) there are significant income-expenditure gaps and disparities in access of basic services, especially for the most-disadvantaged groups, women and children, noted the team members.

The UNDAF has identified 20 low-performing districts considering their MDG achievements, child deprivation index and other key social indicators.

“The training programme at the KILA is aimed at orienting the participants in key factors of an effective local government system with stress on decentralised planning, monitoring and reporting. They will be taught how to ensure participation n of community in identifying, analysing and monitoring problems. Training programme will also give stress on coordination and accountability structures. They should know about the risk and challenges of the decentralised programming,” said KILA Director P.P. Balan said.

The team will visit various local body institutions as part of the training programme.