Country Dialogue in Bangladesh: Fact-finding mission
The Effective Institutions Platform launched in August 2015 its second Country Dialogue for Using and Strengthening Local Systems in Bangladesh. The EIP Joint Secretariat completed a fact-finding mission in Dhaka to prepare for a country dialogue in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh mission, like its Senegalese precursor, involved meetings with government officials connected to the use of country systems (ministries of finance, health and family welfare, the General Economics Division, the Aid Effectiveness team within the ERD) and development partners (Australia, EU, Canada, USAID, the World Bank, ADB, DFID).
The meetings allowed a preliminary identification of the crucial themes that need to be discussed in order to increase the use of country systems. The next steps in the country dialogue will complement Bangladesh’s ongoing formulation of a new PFM strategy and will insure high-level participation across different government branches to facilitate the process. The next stages will be characterised by successive rounds of consultations between government entities and development agencies for collecting feedback on the progress that has been made so far in the use of country systems.
The conversations will lead to jointly identifying persistent bottlenecks to using the different dimensions of country systems and actionable steps to address them. The dialogue will ensure high-level participation from different government branches and development partner headquarters to facilitate the process. The results of the country dialogue will be complementary to Bangladesh’s ongoing formulation of a new PFM strategy.