Govt-NGO partnership must: JS speaker

An effective partnership between government and NGOs is required to ensure justice through community legal service for the poor, marginalised and socially-deprived people, said Jatiya Sangsad Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury yesterday.

Women and children are mostly deprived of legal services in the society, she told a conference at the British Council in Dhaka. She stressed the need for awareness programmes on their rights.

She was addressing the conference on community legal services in Bangladesh, arranged by Community Legal Services (CLS), a programme designed by DFID to broaden legal services.

David Ashley, acting British High commissioner to Bangladesh; and Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, a CLS partner organisation, also spoke.

CLS also released two publications -- the Quality Standards Handbook and a series of 13 Good Practice reports -- for legal services, and awarded several partner organisations.

BLAST Honorary Executive Director Sara Hossain, DFID Bangladesh Senior Governance Adviser and Governance Team Leader Joel Harding and British Council Bangladesh Director Barbara Wickham also attended the event.