People's participation in local government at the grassroots level (Union Parishad) in Bangladesh: an exploratory analysis

For development to occur by the current paradigm, citizens must be actively engaged in all elements of policymaking, decision-making, and service supply. This is true for every phase of the planning process, including the identification of goals, formulation of policies, and their implementation. Public participation in local government is prioritized to enhance efficient administration and provide high-quality services at the neighborhood level. An efficiently managed local government is characterized by active citizen participation and competent leadership that effectively steers the institutions under its jurisdiction toward their primary goal. In its pursuit of establishing itself as the economic center of South Asia, Bangladesh is diligently striving to establish a robust and dynamic municipal government. A new paradigm centered on grassroots democracy is supplanting the traditional mode of public participation in governance via elected officials. The Bangladeshi Constitution and the rules regulating local governments ensure the creation of local governments and the development of numerous projects. To gain a thorough grasp of the dynamics of participation without resorting to direct primary data collection, this study utilizes secondary data to conduct a qualitative investigation into people's involvement in grassroots local government in Bangladesh, specifically in the context of the Union Parishad. This research aims to identify the many avenues via which individuals from underrepresented groups might engage in local government in Bangladesh, namely the Union Parishad (UP). It also seeks to evaluate the extent to which each of these avenues contributes to the empowerment of these groups.