The Interim Government (IG) has laudably initiated a reform process aimed at addressing the poor governance associated with the outgoing regime. Commissions were established to prepare a reform agenda in six areas: constitution, public administration, justice, law enforcement, corruption, electoral process. Two separate commissions/committees were established to: (a) define the key economic challenges facing the country immediately and (b) identify the economic reforms needed to immediately address specific problems and recommend longer-term reforms. Four more commissions have recently been established covering health, women, media and labour. This is a heavy load to carry especially for deployment purposes. In each of these areas, we have witnessed the failure of public policy implementation in the past, as well as the progressive degradation of governance institutions. Commissions and committees are supposed to come up with a body of worthy ideas about what needs to be done in their respective spheres of responsibility to reverse this process of misgovernance.

What is less clear to the public at this stage is the process by which the reforms will be implemented and who exactly will be expected to carry out the reforms. We must all remind ourselves that the malaise in every sector that requires reform did not originate exclusively during the tenure of the last regime. In many cases, the problems date back decades. Over each regime, failure to address and correct the problems worsened the malaise. The 16 years under the Awami League have deepened the malaise to cancerous proportions where severe surgery is needed to save our body politic from irreversible damage.

Considering the long-term sustainability of the issues to be addressed by the respective commissions, we must note that they have already been presented along various reform proposals, either through countless commissions/committees or from civil society, such as and the academic/research community. the years. I myself was involved during my tenure as a member of the advisory council in the first interim government headed by Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed (December 1990-March 1991) in setting up 29 Task Forces (TFs) to address the many issues related to from the economics and governance process that had built up during the Ershad era in the 1980s. The TFs were headed and staffed by 255 of the best professional talents then available in the country, representing a diversity of political perspectives who worked exclusively on a voluntary basis to prepare these reports within two months. Professor Muhammad Yunus chaired the Self-Reliance Policy TF and Professor Wahiduddin Mahmud, currently Education Adviser, chaired the Macroeconomic Policy TF. A number of members of various commissions or committees under the current government such as Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury and Debapriya Bhattacharya were members of various TFs under the first caretaker government.

The TF reports were designed to serve both the newly elected government in the March 1991 elections and the opposition in parliament. Unfortunately, the incoming elected BNP government made little use of the reports. A similar effort, this time by the CPD, just before the 2001 elections, commissioned 16 TFs, drawing on 160 of our top professionals, to propose the policies and reforms needed at that time. These TF reports were also not addressed by the then elected government. Other such policy reforms commissioned by certain governments have gone largely unnoticed by the very government that commissioned the reports. Two such reports that come to mind include a report on public administration reform commissioned by Sheikh Hasina’s first government (1996-2001) and the report of the Education Commission set up by the AL regime in 2010.

The relevant point at issue remains the commitment of certain regimes to implement any reform process. There can be no doubt about the sincerity of any government led by Professor Yunus to carry out reforms, especially since he came into office on the back of a revolution led by the youth of Bangladesh, who still remain untainted by the diseases that have infected them. national politics over so many years. Assuming that the IG remains bound by its commitment to pursue such reforms, I will present below, in synoptic form, some of the practical questions that must be addressed by the IG to ensure that the reform process produces a more positive outcome in comparison. to previous reform efforts.

1. The process of completing the reforms

i. Consultations of draft committee reports with whom?

• Political parties: what will be the criteria to determine which parties will be consulted?
• Civil society: who among a large contingent will be privileged for consultation?
• Youth: Will this be limited to those who led the uprising or will it include other groups that participated?
• Stakeholders in issues covered by specific committees

ii There will be differences of opinion coming from groups within each of the above. Whose views will be prioritized in the final reports?

iii. While all (?) political parties will be consulted in the interests of democracy, not all parties are equal in terms of their representative status and electoral possibilities. How will the IG take this political reality into account?

iv. The final draft of reports based on the public consultation process will likely be discussed and approved by the Advisory Council (AC) in plenary and will be seen as the IG’s final position on the reform agenda in a given area. Will the reform agenda approved by the CA be discussed again by the IG with the political parties and how will disagreements be addressed?

2. Implementation of reforms

When, how and by whom will the reforms completed by the CA be implemented?

i. For the reforms to be implemented, the recommendations of the commissions will have to be operationalized either through policy proposals, legislative acts or even constitutional amendments. Who will be responsible for carrying out this task, the commission or the ministries concerned?

ii. Does the IG intend to begin implementing any or all of the proposed reforms during his term? If it decides to implement only a selection of reforms, what will be the guiding principles for choosing which reforms to implement?

iii. Some political parties, notably the BNP, have indicated that the reforms can only be implemented by an elected government.

• What is the IG position on this particular position?
• Will he proceed to implement the reforms only if the political parties give him permission?
• Should the IG go ahead and start implementing certain reforms if it believes that these reforms need to be prioritized, regardless of the party’s position?

iv. In the final analysis, significant reforms impacting governance and citizens’ lives will need to be continued on a sustainable basis by a government expected to be in office for a period of 4/5 years. Normally this would only be possible for an elected government. However, it may also be possible for a caretaker government to extend its mandate to implement its reform mandate. Such a decision may face strong political resistance, especially from the major political parties. Is IG at all inclined to go that route?

3. Implementation of reforms in the post-IG phase

If the IG is unwilling and/or unable to implement reforms, it may be appropriate to assume that the fate of any meaningful reform agenda will have to depend on its implementation by a future elected government. With this in mind, the GI will need to consider the commitment, willingness and ability of the political party/parties with any credible expectation of forming a post-election government to actually implement the reforms.

The implementation process will need to be sustained throughout the life of the chosen regime. This will not only require sincere buy-in from the political parties concerned, but also the party’s political interests will need to be in sync with the reform process and expected outcomes.

It is this contradiction, both in terms of policies and reforms, between the interests of a future ruling party, its main supporters and influential social forces, that has historically frustrated the implementation of reform during successive regimes. With such concerns in mind, the following questions deserve attention:

(i) If a government, mandated by a large electoral plurality, no longer considers it in its interest to initiate or persevere with reforms, what can be done to ensure the sustainability of the reforms?

(ii) Will the reforms completed by the IG be designed to ensure that future elected governments remain mandated to carry out the reforms?

(iii) What oversight and accountability mechanisms can be included in reforms to ensure ongoing oversight of reforms by:

• Parliament
• The judicial system
• Civil society
• Mediate
• The young people who demand reforms today
• Any other interested body

From my limited experience in public affairs and rather longer exposure to the state of governance in Bangladesh, I have come to believe that the real problem facing all governments has not been policy deficiency or lack of reform, but failure to implement it. own policies. These failures stem from a lack of commitment, the presence of vested interests that run counter to policy outcomes, and a lack of competence due to the progressive degeneration of the quality of governance. We hope that Professor Yunus, the IG and the various commissions will take such perspective into account in finalizing their recommendations for reforms and making decisions on how to implement them.

Prof. Rehman Sobhan is the president of the Center for Political Dialogue (CPD).

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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