Participatory Budgeting in Bangladesh

Democracy demands popular participation in every aspect of its functioning. Bangladesh as a democratic and densely populated country it has to perform many duties to serve the people which may discharge by the local government. The municipality is one of them that committed to providing the services towards its citizens. The aim of the study is to examine the extent to access citizen participation with a focus on local government budgeting in the Nabigonj Municipality with a view to drawing suitable lessons for Bangladesh as a whole. This participatory approach marks a significant advance in democratizing municipal politics and establishing a new modality of urban governance. The study found that the Municipality has not taken many initiatives in terms of improving citizen participation in the municipal decision-making processes even there is no discussion at a senior level of the council about participatory budgeting. This means that the Nabigonj Municipality is not supporting to improve the quality of democracy. If the institutions have been carefully designed and properly scaled, thus resulting in more opportunities for citizens and the marginalized groups to participate.