Condolence News
IGS deeply mourns the premature demise of Dr. Jalal Alamgir, a Visiting Research Fellow who died in Thailand on the 3rd. of December, 2011. Dr. Jalal Alamgir was an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Fellow of the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University. Dr. Alamgir was based at IGS since the beginning of 2011. He was working for his upcoming book on political violence with the assistance of junior researchers of IGS and writing op-ed in national dailies on governance issues. He was also advising IGS researchers on their ongoing research works for State of Governance (SOG) and State of Cities (SOC) reports. IGS family sincerely prays for the eternal peace of this brilliant academic scholar.
Other Activities of IGS
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) -
Engagement with World Bank Country Team and PRAN (in Nepal)
In December 2011, ANSA-SAR has established connection with World Bank Country Team in Bangladesh and PRAN (in Nepal) for expertise support on Social Accountability tools and Third-Party. ANSA is also associating with World Bank Institute in the delivery of online Social Accountability course targeted at the South Asian audience. Moreover there have been agreements of collaborative works with the Water & Sanitation Program (WSP) around their Horizontal Learning Program (HLP) with the Governance team on RTI and support to LGSP-II and with the CMU for providing knowledge support to their Third Party Monitoring (TPM) efforts in Bangladesh.
‘Capacity Building for Promoting Governance’ Programme under The Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education
From 10th-19th December 2011, a 4 member team, 2 from IGS and 2 from BPATC (Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center) went on a 10-day visit to The Netherlands. The IGS team consisted of Dr, Rizwan Khair, Director- In-Charge & Munir Uddin Shamim, Senior Programme Manager and BPATC team included A. A. M. Shafiqul Alam, Rector and Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan, MDS. The purpose of the visit was to finalize the 4-year project named “Capacity Building for Promoting Governance’. This is a collaborative initiative of IGS, BRAC University and BPATC being implemented in partnership with Free University of Amsterdam, Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University and MDF Training and Consultancy B.V (MDF). The project has been undertaken under The Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC). The project aims at building capacity in IGS and BPATC to transform the public sector in Bangladesh to be responsive to the needs of its citizens.
During the visit, the Bangladeshi team and Dutch Partners finalized the project document through a series of meetings, participatory discussions, question-answer sessions, reviewing documents, presentations and visiting relevant organizations.
Procurement Training courses for Public Sector officials
Advanced Diploma in Purchasing & Supply Chain (Level 5) Course of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) has been started for Batch-2 of public sector officials in December 2011 and it will continue up to February 2012.
Private Public Stakeholders Committee (PPSC)
The 5th PPSC quarterly newsletter has been published. The contents comprised of e-tender to prevent corruption, news snippets regarding public procurement & experiences of 3 governmental organizations in relation to citizens in the public procurement process.
Bangladesh Youth Survey
A field trip was organized to conduct Focus Group Discussions, (FGD)’s, with different groups of youths in Chittagong and Sylhet divisions by two different teams to retrieve in depth information on different issues. In Chittagong division, the team conducted FGD’s in Chittagong City, Rangmati, Bandarban and Comilla. The other team in Sylhet conducted FGD’s in Sylhet Sadar, Moulavibazar and Kamalganj. A MoU was signed with UNDP, Bangladesh, to fund some activities of BYS. Neilsen Bangladesh has conducted a survey for the BYS. They have worked in different parts of Bangladesh for the month of December.
11th Asian Urbanization Conference at Hyderabad
Ms. Rubayet Hamid, a research team member of IGS, has presented a paper at the 11th Asian urbanization conference at Hyderabad organized by Osmania University. The paper was titled “Children of the City: An Inter-Generational Account of Urbanization, Poverty and Child Well-Being in Dhaka City.
Lectures conducted at BPATC
In December 2011, Dr. Rizwan Khair, Director-In-Charge of IGS, has delivered lectures in ACAD and Senior Staff Course at BPATC.
Journalism Training & Research Initiative (JATRI) –
On December 29th, JATRI organized a view exchange meeting which was attended by Nobel Laureate, Professor Amartya Sen. The meeting was attended by Salma Sobhan Fellows, who have obtained Salma Sobhan Fellowship, Professor Rehman Sobhan, Professor Rawnak Jahan, & Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury, Registrar at BRAC University. The session was moderated by Jamil Ahmed, Chief Executive of JATRI. The Salma Sobhan Fellows talked about how they were evaluated everywhere after obtaining this fellowship and it has added to their careers by opening up new opportunities.
