Fund Dates

• Start Date: 1 August 2011
• End Date: 31 December 2016

JP Upazila Governance Programme- Reports

• Final Consolidated Narrative Report

• 2018 Consolidated Annual Financial Report

• Final Source and Use of Funds Statement

Overview

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) have established a Joint Programme using a pass-through modality, entitled “Upazila Governance Project (UZGP)”.

UZGP introduce following major innovations at the local level:

• A strong focus on local democracy and accountability is an objective in its own right. This includes the concerted use of a wide range of participatory mechanism and methods to strengthen the functioning of the Upazila Parishads.
• The Upazila (UZP) is an active and vibrant Local Government (LG) unit bringing all service providers at Upazila level under the accountability framework of UZP and creates a mechanism of participatory, democratic and accountable body corporate as envisioned in the Local Government (UZP) ACT 1998.
• The UZGP introduces an effective local level planning and visionary service delivery system by bring all the government, non-government and private sector initiatives under a coordinated and integrated local level planning and management framework. Through this process environmental and climate change issues are taken into account.
• The UZGP output introduces a pilot fiscal facility for the Upazila Parishad. These funds enable the newly established councils to program activities co-financed with the Union Parishads and the line agencies at the local level, thus providing a ‘glue’ that brings together currently disparate resources under local accountability, and enables the UZP to further its development mandate – with a particular focus on MDG acceleration.
• The fiscal facility provided to the UZPs promotes the financing of MDG related activities under the UZP plan framework. Assessment tools will also be developed and used to monitor MDG achievements.

The Joint Programme consists of four main components:

• Strengthened Upazila Parishads as more functional, democratic transparent and accountable institutions

Strengthened Planning and Budgeting system at UZP with MDG orientation and pro-poor service delivery mechanism

• Strengthened technical capacity of  Local Government Division for effective policy review, monitoring, lesson learning and capacity development of LGIs for improved Local Governance.
• Effective Project Management Arrangements

The Joint Programme encompasses:

• 7 Districts selected together with the Government matching the criteria. Within the 7 Districts, the Fiscal Facility of the UZGP will cover 14 UZP comprising 2 UZPs in each selected district in each of the 7 Divisions. 
• A duration of five years, from 2011 to 2016
• central and local Government as programme partner.

The Joint Programme is administered by the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTF Office) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in accordance with its financial regulations and rules.  

Assistance Strategy

The intervention strategy falls within the frames of the following United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) outcome 1: “By 2016, all Bangladeshis including vulnerable groups are better represented and participate more in democratic processes and civil service and local governments’ are more responsive and better able to deliver public services”. For this purpose, the proposed intervention brings together UNDP’s recognized core mandate for Capacity Development with UNCDF’s specialized expertise in local governance and investment capital for fiscal decentralization. In addition, the 2009 Millennium Development Goals Progress Report for Bangladesh promotes the need for progressive approaches to local government to change the nature of the relationship between citizens and the state.

Project intervention principles are:

• Representatives, government officials and citizens can build capacities to be able to work together though it may take time. The establishment of forum and committees are not, in themselves, enough.  Without support and ongoing mentoring, and without a clear goal and mandate, committees will stop functioning very quickly.
• For citizen-state engagement to work, stakeholders at all levels need to be part of the process. Systems are currently inefficient in enabling poor and marginalized people to effectively raise their voices and take part in dialogues, planning and implementation. Nor can it be assumed that all CSOs and NGOs understand and have the capacities to work with the elected bodies and enable them to work with the women, poorest and the marginalized.
• Information and understanding are vital for extending access to the marginalized and those hitherto left behind. On the one hand, it means that access to information, and the belief there are channels available through which to act on it, will motivate people, especially poor people, to risk the time and effort to participate in dialogue and decision-making. On the other hand when representatives, functionaries and the administration have a better understanding of the lives and concerns of their constituents they are more willing to sanction actions that respond positively to their demands.
• Monitoring and evaluation of democratic processes are essential to understand changes in how institutions are listening to and working with all their constituents including the poor.   However, processes of collecting and assessing data against simple impact indicators of voice, accountability and engagement are yet to be institutionalized either in government or at CSO levels.

Governance

The Support for strengthen capacities of local governments and other stakeholders to foster participatory local development service delivery for the MDGs Joint Programme is implemented jointly by The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) using a pass-through modality. The programmatic and financial accountability rests with the Participating UN Organisations, which manage their respective components of the Joint Programme.

Steering Committee

The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperative (MLGRD&C) is on the overall supervision of the project and the SC is chaired by the Secretary of MLGRD&C. The SC is responsible for providing policy guidelines to the Programme. It also provides policy advice and guidance to facilitate the link between project activities and national development initiatives. The SC will meet twice a year.

Project Board (PB)

The Project Board will be responsible for the implementation of the UZGP project activities. The Project Board will be responsible for preparing and endorsing the quarterly work plan, quarterly progress report, annual work plan and annual progress report. It will supervise the overall project implementation and day-to-day management of the project. It will meet quarterly the first year and no less than twice a year for the rest of the project’s life time. 

Project Assurance

Delegated by the PB, the Project assurance role will be responsible for carrying out oversights and monitoring functions. This group, comprised by UNDP and UNCDF CO level teams, the role will ensure that the project management delivers planned outputs as per the annual work plan on the basis of the monthly, quarterly and annual progress reports. The team will organize monthly reviews with the project team and other reviews at the level of the PB.

Project Manager

The project manager  will report to the Project Board and be accountable to the NPD (and UNDP /UNCDF) for day to day activities and provide feedback on any project issues, as and when required. S/he will also be responsible for overall coordination between project and UNDP and UNCDF and among different teams in achieving planned outputs, producing progress and financial reports and be responsible for the effective implementation of the project. The Project Manager will be responsible for delivering the project work plans.

Administrative Agent

The Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTF Office) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) serves as the Administrative Agent (AA) of the Joint Programme. The AA is responsible for concluding Standard Administrative Arrangements (SAAs) with donors and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Participating UN Organisations.