'Include HR, good governance issues in school curriculum'

Speakers at a meeting yesterday called for concerted efforts to address the issues relating to human rights and good governance to ensure peaceful life of people.

The issues should be incorporated in school curriculum to create greater awareness among people from early childhood, they suggested while speaking at the 'Consultative Meeting on Human Rights and Good Governance'.

The speakers, including NGO activists, human rights activists, and representatives from donors, media, trade bodies and chambers, also felt the need of good governance to give a momentum to development activities.

The Manusher Jonno (MJ) Fund organised the meeting at BRAC Inn auditorium where economist Dr Hussain Zillur Rahman, Team Leader of the MJ Fund Shaheen Anam, its Governance Advisor Farzana Naim and Communication and Media Specialist M Emamul Haque spoke.

The MJ is being executed through a consortium comprising Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), CARE Bangladesh, CARE International UK, Deloitte and Touche Emerging Markets (UK) Ltd and London School of Economics.

The consultative meeting was arranged to present findings for sharing experiences gathered from recent workshops organised by the MJ Fund at five divisions - Khulna, Barisal, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Chittagong.

The mission of the MJ is to provide funding support to civil society organisations, NGOs, and private sector bodies to create coordination for good governance leading to the promotion of human rights of the poor and the vulnerable group.

The discussants in the meeting pointed out the findings in divisional level workshops and said that common people, mostly in rural areas, are not aware of their rights and they do not protest human rights violation.

They said the weak role of the civil society, practice of undemocratic activities by political leaderships and lack of people's participation in policy-making process are among major obstacles to HR and good governance issues.

To address these issues, they put forward suggestions, including creation of awareness among mass people and policymakers, undertaking specific programmes for vulnerable groups, active participation of local community in local-level development and separation of judiciary.

The speakers observed that there is ample scope of cooperation among UN bodies, NGOs, donors, government institutions, chambers and trade bodies. Donors could go for collective approaches on specific targets, they said.

The Bangladesh Management and Resource Development Initiative (MRDI) extended the management supports for the consultative meeting, said a press release.