Local governance self assessment: guidelines for facilitators

Local government promises to be more responsive to people's demands, more effective in service delivery and more accountable when citizens participate in local governance. This can be achieved through public meetings, grievance procedures, civil society group activities, opinion surveys, elections, and media involvement. This local governance self-assessment tool should be seen as one among many tools that can contribute to build empowered citizens' participation and accountability into local governance.

This tool has been produced in the context of local governance in Bangladesh and is designed to be used at community and Union Parishad levels. It is aimed at facilitators who should be members of the community they are addressing and already have experience in facilitating meetings. It contains two half-day sessions for raising awareness about community level local governance self-assessment and Union Parishad level local governance self-assessment.

• Participants for the community level session should include leaders of community based organisations (CBOs), local business people, young people, traditional leaders, and ordinary citizens (such as farmers and housewives). A Union Parishad member of the ward and a Union Parishad woman member of the greater ward should be present as guests
  
• Participants for the Union Parishad level session should include the Union Parishad chairman, members and secretary, the co-opted members of the thirteen Standing Committees, central government line agency officials that work in the Union as well as representatives from community organisations, the private sector and traditional leaders 

The process should not stop at the above facilitated sessions but should aim to provide the basis for an elaborationg of a local governane improvement plan.

Annexes include general tips for facilitators, a questionnaires to assess local governance at community and Union Parishad levels, sample flashcards, and a format for developing a Local Governance Improvement Plan.