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The eShangshad is a virtual institution
for the common people of the community to give them a
platform to communicate their opinions and ideas on urgent
and critical national issues through forums, combining
meetings, dialogues, and debates on electronic media. These
ideas will be open for discussion and participation to the
democratic members of parliaments (both ruling and
opposition), as well as the administrative bodies.
Institutions, organizations, companies, journalists,
academicians, development practitioners, students, and
individual citizens (both within and outside the country) as
well as the wider world community will have the choice to
participate and steer the country to a productive and
peaceful terrain. |
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Change Maker will take initiatives
to moderate and organize the agenda to reach
consensus, which will be taken up to the relevant
authority for advocacy.
eShangshad: the platform to speak out
eShangshad will be designed to act as a virtual
forum for democratic problem-solving; idea sharing
and suggestions for appropriate development
paradigm. |
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What is eShangshad offering?
The eShangshad is attempting to develop a new kind
of institution - one that plans to encourage a
participative and transparent democratic practice,
which will enable participation for all interested
parties and will minimize the chances of monopolized
unhealthy practice of democracy.
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eShangshad has been created to address two major
problems we are facing in our country: a national democracy
gap, and a problem-solving gap.
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How will eShangshad improve
Democracy Gap?
The eShangshad, for the first time, would link
together the elected democratic members of
parliament and the constituency into a single forum.
This community of democratic legislators, together
with interested organizations and citizens, can
address the democracy gap at the national level, as
well as discuss about various international issues
that affects the country’s peace and prosperity.
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How will eShangshad improve Solving Gap?
The various problems and concerns of the country
ranging from corruption to poverty, trade and
commerce to environment can be critically analyzed
through eShangshad. People of the country and
Bangladeshis living outside the country can
effectively express their concerns and provide ideas
for addressed those problem through debate,
discussion and consensus.
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Why are we suggesting eShangshad?
It is vitally important to recognize the pros and cons of
the existing political culture and conflicts to understand
the need and role of eShangshad. The brief discussion below
will help to develop a clear understanding of the matter.
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The National Political Culture in practice:
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According to the
representative democracy, “the majority
rules”, i.e., roughly the party who has won
51% of the votes earns the right to decide
the fate of the country and govern the
nearly equal 49% of the others. But this
remaining 49% are generally denied of their
basic democratic right by the authoritarian’
democratic government of one kind or
another. In almost every case, the 49%
democrats are confronted by the
authoritarian ‘democratic’ rulers. Many of
the 49%, often risks their livelihood and
fight for the basic rights that the 51%
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The democratic culture of
the country would be greatly strengthened if
the rationales of the 51% ruler can be
spelled out to the people and the voices of
the 49% can be reached effectively and
consistently to the elected democratic
legislators. eShangshad can provide
important assistance to the emerging
democracy of the country through frank
discussion and debate on various issues that
the 51% have undertaken or not undertaken.
At the same time, it would also shape out
the roles and responsibilities of the 49% in
providing effective criticisms and
guidelines to accelerate the rate of
country’s peace and progress.
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The Global Concerns:
At the global level, the problems are different.
More and more key decisions are taken at the
international level, whether in organizations like
the United Nations or the World Trade Organization,
or in the boardrooms of transnational corporations.
As a result, our elected representatives in national
parliaments are being increasingly sidelined. We're
seeing a steady erosion of democratic accountability
- of our ability as citizens to influence decisions
that affect us. If democracy is to survive and
prosper in the 21st century, we have to extend its
reach to the global level and effectively address
these issues. eShangshad can play a vital role in
developing consensus through dialogues and debates
on various international issues that directly or
indirectly affects the country’s peace and
prosperity and develop effective measures to
safeguard the interest of the country and its
citizens.
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The conflict paradigm:
The globalization of democracy is not only important
for the future of democracy itself, but also for the
benefits that it brings. Among those benefits come
the concerns of non-violent conflict resolution.
Within a working democracy, major conflicts are
resolved by elections, parliamentary votes or courts
of law. Too often, similar conflicts are also
resolved with violence, bombs and bullets. The
transformation of Western Europe in the second half
of the 20th century, from the most warlike region of
the world to the most peaceful, shows how
participatory democratic institutions can give
people an alternative to war as a way to achieve
their goals.
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The National Problem-Solving
Gap
Another reason for launching the eShangshad is the
failure of our current system to solve various
urgent and critical national problems. To take just
a few examples:
Corruption.
Poverty reduction.
Terrorism.
Poor economic growth
What accounts for these and many other failures?
Part of the reason is a simple lack of political
will. Combined with this is an ineffective system
for solving global problems. And contributing to the
situation is a profound lack of communication
between the world's legislators. Let us look at each
in turn.
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Political Will:
Political will is heavily influenced by the
concerns of the electorate, of the media,
and of the national legislators. By
contributing to awareness raising and action
on critical issues among legislators, the
eShangshad can help to generate the
political will to solve national problems
ranging from disaster to terrorism.
The Problem-Solving System in practice:
Our government institutions and
interdepartmental negotiations are simply
too slow and too easily blocked because of
highly bureaucratic structure, corruption,
and politicization. Before action can be
taken through the usual method of
negotiations, agreement must be reached
among almost numerous departments and
agencies, each fiercely defending its
interests and power. This results in weak
agreements. Meanwhile, the institutions have
too few resources and too little democratic
legitimacy, transparency and accountability
to confront our mounting national
challenges.
Much could be achieved by coordinated action
in national parliaments, without the need
for any formal negotiations. Elected
legislators have democratic legitimacy,
parliaments decide how the taxpayers' money
is spent, and they are the ones who pass the
laws. But this raises certain challenges:
political culture, ego and systems for
communication and coordination among
legislators range from poor to nonexistent.
Poor participation and consensus is also a
major hindrance. eShangshad is designed to
break the current barriers and provide an
alternative platform to voice issues and
concerns beyond the structured system of
parliament.
Channel of Communication between
Parliamentarians and the Constituency:
In an era of globalization, information and
communication technology, the parliament
faces an increasingly intricate and remote
national and international agenda that
markedly influences the national economy and
welfare of the people. Each agenda has
unique problems with varying degree of
influence and may have number of different
solutions to choose the most appropriate
one. Given this reality, it is astounding
that how little mutual learning there is
between the parliament and people. While
private sector enterprises, civil society
organizations - and tragically, even the
terrorist networks - adapt to the world of
global communications, national parliaments
still operate much as they did in the 19th
century.
This means that the parliament is
'reinventing the wheel' on issue after
issue, without good up-to-date information
about ideas, initiatives, and practical
solutions from the citizens and other
countries. And it means that many
opportunities are being missed to help solve
shared problems through coordinated
legislative action, when those problems
cannot be solved by the parliament.
Furthermore, elected parliamentarians are
largely excluded from local decision-making
processes, which deny their constituents the
possibility of direct input into those
decisions through their elected
representatives. Particularly for the poor
majority, this means their voice is muted in
decisions that directly affect them in
institutions like the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund and the World
Trade Organization.
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The role of eShangshad
Reflecting on the challenges of national and
global democracy and problem-solving, ChangeMaker is
planning to link the democratic legislators with the
citizens, practitioners, researchers, academicians
as well as leaders of the world together through the
internet, with a voting system and committee
structure comparable to that of a national parlia- |
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ment, it would be
possible to address all these problems at
one stroke.
By creating a kind of informal parliament,
we could create the first genuinely
democratic institution. At the same time, we
could create a parallel problem-solving
process that would aid the discussions and
debate in the parliament. eShangshad plans
to bring together leading legislators,
researchers, civil society groups and
business leaders in a creative brainstorming
process. The conclusions and recommendations |
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of the eShangshad will be shared
to the parliamentarians through this website.
The eShangshad also plans to develop a Knowledge
Center to assist the parliamentarians and other
civil society organizations and citizens learn about
various facts and figures of the issue, as well as
develop capacities through reading best practices,
case studies, articles, reports, etc. The Knowledge
Center will be strengthened gradually, issue by
issue and adding additional services one at a time.
It can engage steadily increasing numbers of
citizens and legislators as time goes on.
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The initiatives by eShangshad
The four main sections of the eShangshad website represent
the principal functions of the eShangshad.
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Ideas Generation/Problem Solving through
Brainstorming, Discussions and Debate
Communication, Dissemination and Exchange of
Knowledge and Information.
Consensus Building through Voting and Priority
Agenda Setting
Advocacy and Lobbying for the implementation of
agendas and issues
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Idea Generation to Address Issues:
Everyone involved in policy-making needs good ideas.
One good idea can make all the difference. One bad
idea can be disastrous. Whether in government or
opposition, legislators and political parties all
need to be on the cutting edge of policy.
The Ideas section of the eShangshad contains an
'idea bank' where participants can deposit and
withdraw ideas at will. It groups, under issue
headings, innovative and/or effective approaches to
policy and legislation that have been tried or
proposed in different countries. Legislators,
government officials, organizations, or individual
citizens interested in policy-making can browse the
site and look for approaches that could be adapted
and introduced. Likewise, participants in the
eShangshad can propose their own favorite policy
ideas to be included on the site, thus reaching out
for a wider audience.
Legislators and organizations can place any ideas on
the site, using a standard format. The eShangshad
may play an editorial role, helping to ensure that
ideas are presented in a way that is s useful as
possible for legislators. Citizens or journalists
registered to participate are encouraged to propose
ideas for inclusion, which will receive careful
consideration. In this simple way, 'best practice'
from a wider community can be more quickly applied
or replicated.
Communicate Ideas and Concerns
The eShangshad will put legislators, organizations,
citizens and journalists in touch with each other
through the discussion forum. Any participant is
able to pose a question on any issue, requesting
information or advice, and to answer or comment on
questions from others. All questions and answers
will be posted on the website. In addition, some
questions will be forwarded by eShangshad by e-mail
to interested participants. Most importantly, this
communication system will allow legislators and
other participants to gather up-to-the-minute
information and advice from a wider community of
people interested in the same issue.
Series of small-group discussion or round-tables may
be organized to enable close interaction with
parliamentarians and civil society to address issues
to share ideas face-to-face.
Consensus Building on Ideas and Concerns
Consensus on issues will be arrived through
discussion, debate and finally voting. The
discussions and debates will be summarized and key
highlights will be shared to facilitate constructive
participation from the people.
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Implementation:
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Assist in Policy Making
Process:
The operation method of the eShangshad is drawn from
the experience of the national parliament. The
primary functions and role of the participants is to
assist the parliamentarians in make the right laws
(including the annual budget) through suggestions,
consensus (voting), and demonstration. At the same
time, the participants would also provide feedback,
comments and suggestions through monitoring the
implementation of the laws by the various executive
branches of government. The eShangshad can't make
laws that bind national governments or parliaments.
But through the creation of issue networks, it can
have an input into the national legislative process
on selected issues, and it can monitor the
performance.
In a traditional parliament, decisions are prepared
by specialized committees, which may invite input
through public hearings. Policy decisions are then
taken in the parliamentary chamber, by majority
vote. The eShangshad has adapted this 'standard
operating procedure' using ICT and involving
legislators, academicians, researchers, journalists,
civil society organizations, private sector
enterprises and individual citizens.
The eShangshad goes through a participatory process
to establish Policy Targets, to be advanced through
the national legislative process. The Policy Targets
are arrived at by parliamentarians and civil society
through a series of on-line polls of participating
legislators and other consultations. The polls will
typically become progressively more specific,
starting by choosing among general priorities and
later identifying specific policy tools.
By spreading good ideas and sharing information, and
through simultaneous policy initiatives in different
parliaments, the eShangshad has the potential to
improve national legislation and policy on selected
issues, and to enhance the capacity of legislators
to solve problems that we all face.
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Monitoring and Feedback
One of the important roles of eShangshad is to
monitor the various acts and their implementation
and provide feedback on the impact of those acts as
desired on the national development.
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Languages
The central pages of the website are provided in
English and Bangla, so that parliamentarians,
organizations and citizens can exchange information
within their own language groups, and vote in their
own languages.
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Future plans |
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The eShangshad will evolve over time, and its future
will be decided by its members.
In the nearer term, we will work to:
Build up participation of legislators,
organizations, citizens and journalists.
Launch issue networks on a growing number of major
national and global challenges.
Engage participation of legislators from other
country.
Develop the capacity to support simple online
discussion groups of legislators on any issue they
might have
in common.
Build up the content in the Ideas section of the
website to make the eShangshad a valuable resource
centre
on a wide range of issues.
In
time, as communications technology develops and
spreads, we may be able to organize live,
large-scale,
multi-media online events.
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Issues: |
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Trade, Commerce and Industries
Governance
Corruption
Information and Communication
Defense
Disaster Management and Relief
Education
Health
Energy and Mineral Resources
Environment
Finance and Budget
Food and Agriculture
Foreign Relations
Local Government
Planning
Science and Technology
Water Resources
Peace and Security
Terrorism
Politics
MDG/PRSP/Poverty |
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