ActionAid Bangladesh (AAB) in coordination with Democratic Budget Movement, the Parliamentary caucus concerned with national development and the annual budget, Dhaka University Centre on Budget and Policy organized ‘People’s Budget Assembly 2019’, a model parliament session to discuss on preparing a participatory budget reflecting hopes, rights and aspirations of the general people,

The programme was held on 28 April 2019 at Engineers Institutions Bangladesh (IEB) in Dhaka. Speakers in this programme addressed that a decentralized budgeting process could be an effective means of attaining the goal of a democratic budget. Rashed Khan Menon, MP, said, “The employment issue should be clearly outlined in the budget. Otherwise, the unemployment rate will keep rising.”

Chief Guest Fazle Hossain Badsha, MP, convener of the National Planning and Budget related parliamentary caucus said: “The national budget should reflect the Dalit, indigenous, differently-abled people and backward communities. The attitude towards them should also change.”

The speakers added, for effective implementation a democratic budget should be based on the opinions of the rural and marginal communities including physically challenged, indigenous, dalits, farmers, weavers and sex workers, RMG workers. They also stressed the need for ensuring transparency and accountability in the budget implementation sector as well as the need of strengthening the local government institutions for the sake of bringing the grassroots people under all the nation-building process.

Former Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, Mujibul Haque Chunnu, MP, Shirin Akhter, MP, Socialist Labour Front General Secretary Razekuzzaman Roton and Bangladesh Communist Party Secretary Ruhin Hosain also spoke at the program among others.