Institutional capacity building for urban local government bodies for Bangladesh- a study of four medium sized towns

Abstract

Capacity building, which comes from the demand of the changed world, is the process of improving efficiency and ability to make effective use of the human and fmancial resources available. It is the process to cope with the changes over time. It is not operated within any discrete principles, methodology or guidelines. Scope of capacity building interventions also varies in diversity from one to another. Institutional capacity building has become the prime concern during the last decade to the Government, donors and development actors. As ineffectiveness and inefficiency is a common feature of the different state OWIledorganizations, local government institutions, corporations, private and public enterprises in most of the developing countries. It hinders to develop pro-active service sector. This inefficiency is a great obstacle to establish democratic institutionalization and good governance, which is a pre-requisite to merge with the changed and globalize world. This study will view on urban governance from the perspel;tive of institutional development. The aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of the concept of institutional capacity building approach for strengthening the urban local government bodies of Bangladesh. In this study four Pourashavas were selected for data collection namely Bogra, Natore, Pabna and TangaiL An urban local government institution is supposed to provide services to its citizens. It is an institution of urban people functioned by peoples representatives. Urban governance ean be visualized through activation of an urban institution with functional relationship with people and peoples representatives. Effectiveness can be measured through quality of service delivery for the people. Customers satisfaction is one of the major output of effectiveness of an institution. Efficiency is based on perfonnance, leaderships, skills and awareness of local elected representative,. In a country like Banglade,h, an urban institution faces multifaceted problems as shortage offunds, less mobilization of resources, lack of citlzenry roles and re,ponsibilitics, lack of skills and awareness of the public representatives, lack of political and social commitment and many other problems. The study has been conducted to capacitate the process of urban local government of Bangladesh.